of Chicago
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GIFT OF
\ K V
,
'
THEOPNEUSTIA
The Plenary Inspiration
of
The Holy Scriptures
deduced from
Internal Evidence, and the Testimonies
of Nature, History and Science
By L. GAUSSEN, D.D.
Professor of Systematic Theology, Oratoire, Geneva
REVISED EDITION
With Analysis and Topical Index
DAVID SCOTT'S TRANSLATION
CHICAGO
The Bible Institute Colportage Ass'n
826 North La Salle Street
\
r
Two Notable Commendations
BY CHARLES H. SPURGEON
Thd turning-point of the battle between those
who hold "the faith once delivered to the saints,"
and their opponents, lies in the true and real
inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. This is the
Thermopylae of Christendom. If we have in the
Word of God no infallible standard of truth, we
are at sea without a compass, and no danger from
rough weather without can be equal to this loss
within. "If the foundations be removed, what can
the righteous do?" and this is a foundation loss of
the worst kind.
In this work the author proves himself a mas-
ter of holy argument. Gaussen charms us as he
proclaims the Divine veracity of Scripture. His
testimony is clear as a bell.
BY JAMES M. GRAY, D.D.
Dean of The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago
The milestones on my spiritual pathway have
been marked by certain books I have read, and
one that stands out in my memory more than any
other is Gaus sen's great work, "The Plenary In-
spiration of the Scriptures." The day it came into
my hands as a young minister just beginning his
work marks an epoch, and I speak from experience
when I say that a Christian who reads and studies
it need never again be troubled by attacks on the
Word of God. For years it has been out of print
in this country, and hardly to be obtained, even
in an old book store. Now that The Bible Insti-
tute Colportage Association has purchased the
plates and brought out a new edition my heart
rejoices that earnest Christian workers of this
generation may have the same opportunity to be
established in the faith that God thus sent to me
at that time.
MlW , V .
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
SOON after the first publication of the Theopneustia, the late
Rev. Dr. Welsh wrote to me, urging me to translate it for
the press. A series of other engagements prevented me from
doing so for several years. At last, in answer to a call for a
cheaper and less bulky translation than one that had mean-
while appeared in London, I applied myself to the task, and
had completed it before seeing what my predecessor had pub-
lished in the south. The present translation being from the
latest Trench edition, has the advantage of all the author's
improved arrangement.
The importance of the subject, the high character of the
author, and the admirable manner in which he has acquitted
himself, required that no ordinary pains should be bestowed
in doing him justice. These pains I have not spared.
I have endeavoured, as far as I could, to give the texts
quoted from Scripture in the precise words of our authorized
version, and to secure the utmost possible correctness in the
references. The headings at the top of the pages will, it is
hoped, be of considerable use to the student.
After consulting an eminent authority as to the propriety
of the change, "plenary inspiration," "divine inspiration,"
01 ** verbal inspiration," have been substituted throughout
(iii)
iv TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
for the term Theopneustia, borrowed by the author from the
Greek, and retained on the title-page. It was thought thai
the frequent recurrence of so unusual a word might repel
ordinary readers, and make it appear that the book was ex-
clusively for the learned.
At a time when almost all religious controversies seem to
turn, more or less, on the question, How far the Holy Scrip-
tures are inspired? and when persons of all ranks and classes
are called upon to arm themselves against various errors
having their root in false or inadequate views on this subject,
it seems hardly possible to overrate the value of the work
now before the reader. Nor is it only as a work of contro-
versy that it is invaluable. It is imbued throughout with a
spirit of affectionate earnestness and glowing piety, which,
even when it makes the greatest demand on the intellect,
never suffers the heart to remain cold. Add to this, the
wonderful copiousness of the illustrations, which the author
seems to borrow with equal ease from the simplest objects
in nature, the deepest wells of learning, the remotest deduc-
tions of science, and the history at once of the most ancient
and most modern times. In short, as we accompany him frou
page to page and chapter to chapter, we seem not so much
to be reading a book, as to be listening to a devout and ac-
complished friend, expatiating on a favourite subject a sub-
ject of the very greatest importance, and one amid all the
details of which he is quite at home.
DAVID D. SCOTT.
GLASGOW.
GENERAL CONTENTS.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE, ..... v
PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS, ..... fi
CHAPTER I.
DEFINITION OF THE THEOPNEUSTIA, OR DIVINE INSPIRATION.
Section I. ....... ^B
Section II. ...'.. 24
Section III. ....... 20
Section IV. ....... 32
Section V. On the Individuality of the Sacred Writers, . 38
CHAPTER II.
SCRIPTURAL PROOF OF THE DIVINE INSPIRATION.
Section I. All Scripture is Divinely Inspired, . . 58
Section II. All the Prophetic Utterances are given by God, 59
Section III. All the Scriptures of the Old Testament are Pro-
phetic, . ...... 67
Section IV. All the Scriptures of the New Testament are Pro-
phetic, . ...... 73
Section V. The Examples of the Apostles, and of their Master,
attest that in their view all the Words of the Holy Books
are given by God, . . . , . . 89
CHAPTER III.
BRIEF DIDACTIC ABSTRACT OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE DIVINE
INSPIRATION.
Section I. Catechetical Sketch of the Main Points of the
Doctrine, . . . . . . 106
Section II. On the Adversaries and Defenders of the Doc-
trine! ....... 139
VI GENERAL CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
PAOB
EXAMINATION OF OBJECTIONS.
Section I. The Translations, . . . . 153
Section II. Use of the Septuagint Translation, . . 161
Section III. The Various Readings, . . .164
Section IV. Errors of Reasoning or of Doctrine, . . 197
Section V. Errors in the Narratives Contradictions in the
Facts, ....... 207
Section VI. Errors contrary to Natural Philosophy, . 244
Section VIL The Declarations of Paul himself, . . 2?)
CHAPTER V.
EXAMINATION OF EVASIONS.
Section I. Might not Inspiration pertain to the Thoughts only,
without extending to the Words ? 275
Section II. Should we except from Inspiration the His-
torical Books ? 28P
Section III. "Will the apparent insignificance of certain De-
tails in the Bible authorize their being excepted from Inspira-
tion? ....... 306
CHAPTER VI.
ON SACRED CRITICISM, IN THE RELATIONS IT BEARS TO DIVINE
INSPIRATION.
Section I. Sacred Criticism is a Scientific Inquirer, and not
a Judge, . ....... 324
Section II. Let Sacred Criticism be an Historian, not a Sooth-
sayer, ....... 330
Section III. Sacred Criticism is the Doorkeeper of the Temple,
not its God, ...... 336
CHAPTER VII.
CONCLUSION.
Section I. Retrospect, . . . . 349
Section II. . . . . 355
ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF CONTENTS.
FOR MINUTIAE AND REPEATED BEFERENCE8
CHIEFLY USEFUL.
Pag*
139-145
140
251
304
144
289-292
141
134
134
256
147
Adversaries of Inspiration, .
Agobard referred to, . .
Airey, Illustration from,
Ambrose (St) quoted, .
Ammon on miraculous facts.
Angels, their nature, office, &c.,
Anomeans oppose Inspiration,
Apocrypha in Old Testament, not in New Testament,
Apostles are prophets, &c. (See Chap. II. Analysis),
Astrology, ......
Athenagoras quoted,
Augustine (St) quoted, 136 (and n. 3), 254, 305 Referred to,
150 On Matt, xxvii. 9, 10 216 Illustration from, 345.
Authenticity of Scripture an historical question, 129, 131, 138
Baumgarten on Inspiration, ... . 108
Bellarmine on authority of Scripture, . . 136
Bengel referred to, .... 167,168,195
,, on 1 John v. 6, 7, ... . 193
Bernard (St) quoted, ... .31
Bible neither human nor fallible (Pref. Obs.), 7 Its Divine
brevity, 296 Its Divine charm, majesty, beauty,
53, 56, 293, 341 Its growing radiance, 359 Its own
witness, 340 Divine care of, 167.
Bible Society condemned by Pope Leo XII. . 123
Buchanan, the Malabar Boll, . . . 171
Castellio, 143, 210
Celsus, ...... .208
Chateaubriand, Illustration from, . . .49
Chinese, their cosmogony, ... . 253
Christ, our Lord Jesus how he quoted Scriptures, 93 Com-
pared to the written Word, 54 Resurrection, &c. (Sen
Scripture Index.)
Chrysostom, (St), quoted, . . . 71 (n. 2), 357 (. 3)
Church, Ancient, defends inspirabion, 145-152 Catholic, care
of New Testament, 132 Of Corinth. (See Scripture
Index). Of Rome. (See Rome, Trent, &c.)
Claud quoted, ...... 126
(vii)
VUl
ALPHABETICAL INDEX. OF CONTENTS.
Page
255
120 (n. 2.)
Columbus referred to, ...
Creissenach (Dr) quoted, . . ,
Criticism. (See Chap. VI. Analysis).
D'Alembert quoted, ....... 256
Decalogue, ....... 302
Defenders of Inspiration, .... 145-152
Definition of Inspiration in persons, . . 23, 34, 106
Degrees of Inspiration, four supposed, 27, 107 In persons, 48
Deluge, ...... 266 (.l)
Desmarets quoted, ...... 56
Details, insignificant. (See Chap. V. Sect. m. Analysis).
De Wette rejects Inspiration, . . . 26,144,202
Dick (Dr), on Inspiration, . . . .27, 40, 209
Direction, Inspiration of. . . . . 27, 107
Doctrine, Errors of. (See Chap. IV. Sect. rv. Analysis.)
Edwards (President) quoted, .... 32
Eichhorn, rationalistic doctrine of prophecy, 144 Referred
to, 169, 332, 357.
Elevation, Inspiration of, . . 27, 107
Epimenides, ..... .62
Epiphanius (St) quoted, . . 141
Erasmus (and others) on Luke i. 1-4, . . 87
Eusebius quoted (Miltiades in), 88 Referred to, . 150
Evasions examined. (See Chap. V. Analysis.)
Excitation, Inspiration is not, .... 47
Existence of Inspiration rejected, 26 Maintained, 28, 58.
Ecstasy, Inspiration not imply, ... 88, 147
Facts, contradictions in. (See Chap. IV. Sect. V. Analysis).
Fanatics oppose Inspiration, . . . 143
France, Churches of, confession 4th Article, . 129
Freiburg, illustration from organist of cathedral, 51
Galen quoted, . . . 326
Galileo referred to, . . 255
Gieseler (Dr) on sources of Gospels, 332
Gleig (Bishop) on sources of Gospels, 335
Gnostics opposed Inspiration, . 141
Griesbach referred to, 168 His corrections, 176 On Ep,
Romans and Galatians, 181-188 And Scholz, 190.
Haldane quoted, ..... 311 (n. 1)
Hengstenberg meets contradictions, 209 On resurrec-
tion, 223, 224 (n. 1).
Herschel (Sir John), illustration from, . . . 251
Hindus, their cosmogony, .... 253, 254
Historical books not excepted from Inspiration. (See Chap.
V. Sect. U.)
ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF CONTENTS.
Page
Home referred to, . . . . 163, 209
------ ----- -
Hug denies Inspiration, 144 Eeferred to, .
Ignorance, human, and vanity,
Illumination and Inspiration.
Impulsion, part of Divine action in Inspiration,
T_J; :j 1:1 ~c :j or
168,332
204
109-125
individuality of writer^ . ---*--- --^ ^ n,'l2G, 350
Inspiration. (See Existence, &o.) A doctrine and fact,
24, 36 Asserted, not explained, 25, 42 Not learned and
abstruse, bnt simple, (Pref. Obs.), 5 Of book, not
writer, 47, 111, 116, 281, 349.
Integrity of (present) copies, . . . 164, &o.
Intermittent Inspiration, 45, 351 (By intervals), 112, 113.
trenseus (St) quoted, . . 125, 146, 150, 326, 328, 363
Jerome (St) on Apocrypha, 134, 161 (and n. 1) On Inspi-
ration, 140, 198 Referred to, 149, 307.
Jews confound Inspiration and illumination, 119 Talmud
(See Talmudists), 119, 163 (n. 1), 296, 356 Old Testa-
ment in their care, 131, 132.
Josephus quoted, 24, 87 (n. 4), 127 (and n. 8), 128, 132, 133,
142 (. 2). 230, 240, 241.
J odma. ( See Scripture Index. )
Judgment, precipitate causes of, ... 211-243
Julius Africanus quoted and referred to, . . 148, 244
Justin Martyr quoted, ..... 147
Kennicott (Dr), ..... 168,169
Known already, Illusion from, .... 48
Koran, absurdities of, 254 Compared with Bible, 55, 294, 295.
Lactantius quoted, ...... 251
Language popular in Scripture, 250 The mirror of the
soul, ....... 277
Latins. (See Rome, Church of.)
Le Clerc admits partial Inspiration, 144 On Gospel (Matthew), 332
Lee (Dr) quoted, ...... 173
Luke, Apostle and Prophet, 83-87 On Luke ii. 1, 2, . 230
Luther, his touchstone, 130 Illustration from, 345.
Maccabees, Book of, . .
M'Caul quoted, .
Mahomet opposes Inspiration (and see Koran),
Manicheans oppose Inspiration,
Mark, Apostle and Prophet, .
Marsh (Bishop of Llandaff) on Gospel of Matthew,
166
119
142
141
83-87
332
Martin. (See Osterwald and Martin.)
Mary, B. V., 300
Massoretics, ....... 172
Michaelis denies Inspiration, 27, 85, 144 On Matt, i., ii., 325,
ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF CONTENTS.
Pag*
332-On Matt. xi. 9, 1180, 111 (n. 4) On authenti-
city, 82, 138 On modern researches, 108.
Middleton (Bishop) on 1 John v. 6, 7, 193
Mornay quoted,
Moses, not excepted from Inspiration,
MosesMaimonid.es, . .
Mysticism, ....
295
68
142
358
Narratives, errors in. (See Chap. IV. Sect. V. Analysis )
Naturalists, example of, ... . 327
Newton (Sir Isaac), illustration from, 29, 250 Referred to, 263
Objections examined. (See Chap. IV. Analysis.)
Origen quoted, 146,1*7,301,327
Osterwald and Martin referred to, 162, 233 Illustration from,
175 Compared, 177, 178.
Partial Inspiration, (Pref. Obs.), .... 9-11
Pascal, illustration from, . . . . .29
Paul, Apostle and Prophet, 79-82 On Inspiration (Ep.
Hebrews), 89-91 -Declarations. (See Chap. IV. S^ct.
vn. Analysis) Details, insignificant. (See Chap. V.,
Sect. in. Analysis.)
Peter Martyr quoted, .... 210,243
Peter (at), qucsre his episcopate, popedom, primacy, or
presence at Home, . . 320
Philo Judseus quoted, . . . 24
Philosophy, eirors in. (See Chap. IV. Sect. VI. Analysis.)
No physical error, ..... 253
Plato, Timasus of, quoted, . . . .60
Plenitude of Inspiration denied, 26 Asserted (Pref. Obs.),
7, 67, 105, 139.
Porphyry, ....... 208
Prophets, prophecy, &o. (See Chap, n.)
Protestantism impure, ..... 357
Racine, Illustration from, . . ... . 46
nationalists degrade Bible, 118 Oppose Inspiration, 144.
Readings, various. (8ee Chap. IV. Sect. HI. Analysis )
Reasoning, errors in.( Do. do. IV. do. )
Reformed churches, test of Inspiration, . . . 129
Religion and theology compared and defined (Pref. Oba.), 13
Religion, two forms of, .... 355, 356
Resurrection of our Lord. (See Scripture Index.)
Rome, Church of, differing views on Inspiration, 120 Regard
to tradition and opposition Inspiration, 124, 143, 3o6
On authority of Scripture, 136 Silly infallibility of, 162.
(See Trent, Council of.)
Rosenmuller opposes Inspiration, .... 144
Rousseau quoted, ...... 308
ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF CONTENTS. XI
Rudelbach quoted, . . .36, (n. 1), 140, 145, 149
Schleiermacher rejects Inspiration, ... 26. 143
Scholz, ...... 168,190-194
Semler rejects Inspiration, ..... 144
Septuagint referred to, 62 (n. 4) T7se in New Testament.
(See Chap. IV. Sect. n. Analysis.)
Smith (Dr Pye) denies plenitude of Inspiration, . . 27, 210
Sociuus opposes Inspiration, . . . 143, 210, 357
Strauss quoted, 54 -Opposes inspiration, 202, 203, 208 (and
n. 3), 357,
Suggestion, Inspiration of, 28, 107 Part of Divine action in
Inspiration, 125.
Sumner's (Abp. of Canterbury) Records of Creation quoted, 2(54
Superintendence, Inspiration of, . . 27, 107
Supper, the Lord's, ...... 303
Talmudists (see also Jews) oppose Inspiration, . . 142
Texts, original and translated, . . . 155-160, 179
Theodore (of Mopsuestia) denies Inspiration, . 27, 139, 141
Theology and religion compared and denned (Pref. Obs.), 13
Theology, false, ancient, and modern, . . . 253
Theophilus quoted, ..... 342 (and n. 1)
Thepphylact quoted, . (71 n. 2)
Theopneustia. (See Inspiration.)
Timothy. (See Scripture Index.)
Translations. (See Chap. IV. Sect. I.)
Trent, Council of, quoted, . . 121, 134 (and n. 4), 161, 296
Turretine quoted, ..... 143, 210
Twesten (Dr) denies plenitude of Inspiration, quoted, 27, 23, 40,
41,130,210
Universality of Inspiration denied, 26 Maintained, 28, 46,
58, 66, 350.
Variations, unimportant, .... 169, 170
Verbal Inspiration, example of our Lord, 103, 104, 105
Maintained by Ancient Church, 148 No objection from
translations, 154 The evasion examined, 275-286 Re-
trospect, 349, 352.
Virgilius, illustration from, ..... 255
WhitbyonMatt. xxvii. 9,10, . . . .217
Wilson (Bp. of Calcutta) denies plenitude of Inspiration, 27, 39, 210
Wirgmann's divarication of New Testament, . . 202
Wiseman's discourse quoted, .... 169
"Wordsworth on Titus ii. 13, . . . . 191 (. 2)
"Zacharias, son of Barachiaa," ... 237-241
SCEIPTUEE INDEX
OF PASSAGES MORE PARTICULARLY DISCUSSED.
W = COMPARISON "WITH OTHER PASSAGES.
Page
232
235
102
235
80
234
234
213
98
99
237
214
216
100
237
218-229
234
234
213
241
237
218-229
212
Chap. GENESIS.
Page
ohap. MATTHE
xlvi. 27, w.
215
iv. 5, w.
EXODUS.
xx. 17, w.
302
v, w.
v. 18, w.
vi. 9, w. a
NUMBERS.
xi. 9-11, w.
xxiii. 16,
284
xiv. 20, w.
DEUTERONOMY.
xv. 37, w.
v. 21, w.
302
xx. 30, w.
x. 22, w.
215
xxii. 31, 32,
xxii. 43,
JOSHUA.
x. 12,
245,267
xxiii. 35, 36, to....
xxvii. 5, w.
2 SAMDEL.
xxvii, 9, 10, w. ...
x\iv. 9, w.
215
xxvii. 46,
1 KINGS.
ix. 28, w.
215
xxvii. 45, 46, to.
xxviii., w.
1 CHRONICLES.
MARK.
xxi. 5, w.
215
vi. 43, w.
2 CHRONICLES.
viii. 8, w.
viii. 18, w.
xxiv. 21, w.
215
237
x. 46, w.
si. 12-14,
xv. 33, 34, w. ...
ZEOHAHIAH.
xvi., w. ...
ri. 13, w.
216
ivi. 5, w.
MATTHEW.
... 325,
331, 332
LUKE.
5. 17, v.
229
i. 1-4,
iv.
96
ii. 1, 2, ...
86,87
230
fxiii)
XIV
SCRIPTURE INDEX
Chap.
Page
Chap.
Page
LUKE.
ROMANS.
ii. 41,
96
xvi.
317
iii. 23, v>.
229
xvi. 25,
...
79
iv. 5, w.
iv. 16,
vi., w. ...
232
97
235
1 CORINTHIANS.
vii. 10, 12, 25, ...
271
ix. 17, w.
234
xii. 4-11,
*
64
xi. 2, w. ...
235
xii. 28,
79
rvi. 17, w. ...
102
2
CORINTHIANS.
xviii. 35, w. ...
sxiii. 44, 45, W....
213
237
xii. 2,
274
xxiv., w. ...
218-229
GALATIA.NS
xxiv. 4, w. ...
212
...
188
txiv. 27,
101
iii. 16,
...
205
xxiv. 44, ...
68
1 TIMOTHY
JOHN. *
v. 23,
315.
vi. 13, w.
x. 35,
234
103, 105
2 TIMOTHY.
"xi. 51, ...
284
iii 16,
... 23, 24, 58,
127
xiii. 8, ...
313
iv. 13, 21,
306
xix. 23, 24,
308
TITUS
XX., W.
218229 .. 13
191
ACTS.
i
TO
O1 A '
2 PETER.
1. JLo *W*
vii. 17, w.
215 i'.. 20 ,' 21 '
59, 66, 107,
285
vii. 38,
68
111. Z, ... a
iii. 15, 16, ... 73, 74, 85
ROMANS.
i. xvi
181
1 JOHN.
Bi, 2.
68
v.7,8,
_ 191.
192
ANALYSIS.
CHAPTER L
DEFINITION OF THEOPNEUSTIA.
Page
SECT. I. Theopneustia defined, .... 23
SECT. IL Theopneustia asserted, not explained, . .25
SECT. IH. Theopneustia rejected as to its existence, univer-
sality, plenitude, .... 26
y some four degrees distinguished, viz.,
Superintendence, elevation, direction,
suggestion, . . . .27
This book designs, therefore, to prove exist-
ence, universality, plenitude, . . 28.
Man's part in God's book; illustration from
Pascal and Newton, ... 29
SECT. IV. Theopneustia (further) defined and stated, . 34
Neither a priori (" necessary"), nor from
beauty, wisdom, &cj, of Scriptures, but
solely on divine declaration, . . 35
This addressed, of course, to those who ad-
mit Scriptures, .... 36
Scriptures declare their own Inspiration, 36
SECT. V. Individuality of sacred writers, . . 38
False inferences; different statements there-
on, . . . .39
E/BPLT (1.) Human individuality acknow-
ledged, ... 41
(2.) God's acting, ... 42
(3.) What is God's style? . . 43
(4.) Human personality how employed, 44
(5.) Inconsistency of objection to (al-
leged) difficulty, . . 45
(6.) Intermittent Inspiration is com-
plicated, rash, childish, . 45
(7.) "ALL Scripture is given by in-
spiration of Go:l," . . 46
(8.) Inspiration in book, not in man, 47
Three illusions : excitation, de-
gree, already known, . 47
(9, 10.) Different styles one God: illus-
tration from music, Freiburg, 49
(xv)
XVI
ANALYSIS.
(11.) This individuality gives beauty,
variety, unity, harmony, .
CHAPTER II.
SCRIPTUBAL PBOOF OF THEOPNBUSTIA.
I. All Scripture is divinely inspired (2 Tim.
iii. 16), . .- .
IE. All prophetic utterances given by God,
- 2 Peter i. 20, 21, .
"What is a prophet ?
SECT.
SECT.
The prophets, in Bible, speak the words
of
53
58
59
59
60
61
62
63
Jehovah,
False prophets,
Scripture prophecies "the words of God in
mouth of man," ....
Scripture prophecies sometimes without
foresight, knowledge, or even desire, of
prophets, . . 63
Occasional gift of prophecy, 64
Church of Corinth had (1 Bp. xii 4r-ll), 64
Diversities of gifts, 64
Divided severally, 65
3. The subject of desire, 65
4. Different forms, . 65
5. "Words of Holy Ghost spoken by man, 65
6. 1 Of long continuance, . . 65
7.) Prophets not absolutely passive, 66
Hence, 2 Peter i. 20, 21 establishes plenary
and entire Inspiration of Scriptures : these
are written prophecies, . . 66
SECT. III. All Old Testament Scriptures are prophetic, 67
The whole look is the " Word of God," 67
(a) " Moses" may not be excepted, 68
(0) Nor "the Prophets," . 69
(y) Nor "the Psalms," . . fl
Hence, the whole Old Testament is a written
prophecy, .... 71
SECT. IV. All New Testament Scriptures are prophetic, 73
2 Peter iii. 15, 16, ... 73
2 Peter iii. 2 : hence, writings of Apostles
are written prophecies, ... 74
Writers of New Testament au/perior to
writers of Old Testament, in
(a) Mission, , . > 74
(jSJ Promises, .... 75
M Gifts, .... 78
(3) Rank, . ... .79
Apostles are prophets (Bom. xvi. 25); more
than prophets (Matt. xi. 9, 11); above the
prophets (1 Cor. xii. 28), . . 79
ANALYSIS. XVll
Were Mark and Luke prophets? . . 83
Luke i. 1-4, .... 86
Inspiration does not imply ecstasy, . 88
SECT. V. Testimony of Apostles and the Lord Jesus Christ, 89
St Paul (Ep. Hebrews), ... 90
The Lord Jesus Christ, . ' . . 92
("Unconscious blasphemy of rationalists), 95
(*.) In the temple (Luke ii. 41), . 96
(/3) The temptation (Matt, iv.), . 96
ty) At Nazareth (Luke iv. 16), . 97
(8) Before Sadducees (Matt xxii. 32), 98
(i) Before Pharisees (Matt. xxii. 43), 99
(i) On the cross (Matt, xxvii. 46), . 100
(u) After resurrection (Luke xxiv. 27), 101
(9) Luke xvi. 17, and Matt. v. 18., . 102
(i) John x. 22-40, . . .103
(x) The Scripture cannot be broken
(John x. 35), - . .103
Hence, PLENABY VEBBAL INSPI-
RATION, . . . 105
CHAPTER III.
DIDACTIC ABSTBAOT OF THE DOOTBINE.
SECT. I. Catechetical sketch, .... 106
i.-iii. Inspiration: its effects, . . 106
iv.-vi. Degrees of Inspiration : mediate revela-
tion, .... 107
vii.-xi. Inspiration and illumination, . 109
(These differ in kind, characteristics,
deyree.)
xii. Miraculous gifts intermittent : Inspi-
ration by intervals, . . 113
xiii. Language fallible when uninspired, . 115
xiv., xv. Inspiration differs from illumination
in essence : infallibility of sacred
writers depends solely on Inspiration:
Inspired words, miraculous, words of
God : our/OM%not on illumination of
writers, but on Inspiration of writ-
ings : one has degrees, other has no
degrees : it goes to heart of God, . 116
xvi. Much harm from confusion hereon;
either the Word of God degraded, or
uninspired writings exalted, . 117
xvii., xviii. Rationalists the former, Jews and
Latins the latter, . . . 118
xix., xx. The Jewish Talmud, . . . 119
xxi., xxii. Papal Traditions, . , . 12C
xxiii.-xxvi. Inspiration shews impulsion (wilB and
XV1I1 ANALYSIS.
Pag
suggestion : internal and external
(understanding): writers were living
pens: they (and the occasion) pre-
pared by God; their individuality
sanctified, .... 125
xxvii. All the Scripture (Old Testament and
New Testament) equally Inspired, 126
xxviii. The authenticity of each book an histori-
cal question, . . . 129
rxix., xxx. Test of Reformed Churches ; of Luther, 129
xxxi.-xxxv. Jews bear testimony to authenticity of
each book of Old Testament, . 130
xxxvi., xxxvii., f Catholic Church bears testimony to each
xxxix. \ book of New Testament, . . 132
xxxviii. Apocrypha ; no addition to New Testa-
ment, .... 133
xl.-xliii. Church a depositary of Scripture : that
. (an historical document) declares its
own PLENARY INSPIRATION-, . 136
SEOT. II. Adversaries and defenders, . . . 139
xliv. A dversaries to 8th century among Heretics
(except Theodore of Mopsuestia), . 139
2d century, Gnostics, . . . 141
3d ,, Manicheans, . . . Ml
4th Anomeans, . . . 141
5th Theodore of Mopsuestia, . 141
7th Mahomet, . . .142
12th and 13th Talmudistic Jews Moses Mai-
monides, . . . 142
16th Socinus and Castellio, . 143
17th Fanatics, Latins, Rationalists, 143
18th ,, Rationalists, . . . 144
xlv. Defenders whole Church to days of Refor-
mation, .... 145
E-udelbach gives REVIEW OF FIRST EIGHT
CENT0RIES ; proves that,
(1.) Ancient church teaches Old and New
Testament Canonical writings In-
spired, .... 145
f 2. ) Teaches infallibility of Scripture, 146
(3.) nothing erroneous, useless,
superfluous therein, . 146
(4.) doctrine same throughout, 146
(5.) passive intelligent Inspiration, 146
(6.) inecstatic Inspiration, . -147
(7, 8.) verbal Inspiration, . 148
(9.) She respectfully quotes^ &c. ; re-
conciles, &c., . . . 148
80.1 admits liberty in phenomena, 149
1.) fixes relations; proves; replies, ISO
ANALYSIS. XIX
CHAPTER IV.
OBJECTIONS EXAMINED.
Page
SECT. I. Translations, ..... 153
Are they inspired ? . . . 154
Insignificant objection : really no objection ;
not bearing against fact of verbal Inspira-
tion; only contests advantage, . . 354
Difference of original and translated text, 155
(1.) Sacred writers rendered Divine thoughts
by sensible symbols, . . .155
(2.) Original text written at given moment
to single man, . . . 157
(3.) Translators learned; sacred writers illi-
terate, .... 157
(4.) Thought of God only found in expres-
sion of sacred writer ; but translators
have Divine text, . . . 158
(5.) Possible faults as to original text bound-
less, as to translation limited, . 159
Hence, limitation of doubt, . 160
God required for one, Mam, sufficed
for other, . . .161
SECT. H. Use of Septuagint in New Testament, . 161
How did Apostles use Septuagint? illustration, 162
When Septuagint correct, quoted verbatim, 163
incorrect, amended, . 163
in particular sense, para-
phrased, . . 163
SECT. III. Various Readings, .... 164
Inspiration and integrity of present copies not
tp'be confounded, .... 164
Objection is against present integrity ; a ques-
tion of history, criticism, . . 166
Modern researches, unimportant results, . 167
Buchanan Massoretics, . . 171
Divine care of Old and New Testament text, 172
Osterwald & Martin illustration, comparison, 175
Received text and ALL Greek manuscripts, 179
Griesbach (Up. to Romans), 181
results examined, 187
(Ep.toGalatians),l&8
(and Scholz) new
Readings, . 190
Imitation of doubt Bengelius, . . 194
ALL churches have same Hebrew Old Testa-
ment, Greek New Testament, . . 196
SECT. IV. Errors of reasoning or doctrine, . . 197
(Supppsed)reasoning8, quotations, superstitions,
prejudices, &o., St Jerome. . . 198
ANALYSIS.
Page
BEPLY (1.) Protest, . . .198
(2.) Inconsistency involve aban-
donment of principles) . 200
(3.) Where stop ? . .200
(4.) Human vanity, ignorance, 204
SECT. T. Errors in narratives contradictions in facts, 207
(Supposed) dates, allusions, &c , . 207
(1.) Scriptures always adversaries and de-
fenders, .... 203
(2.) Ease of general assertion, . . 209
PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT : various causes, . 211
(a) Brevity (See Scripture Index our
Lord's resurrection, &c.), . . 211
(0) Two date-commencements (See Scripture
Index), . . . .229
M Different designs in gospels (do.), . 229
(8) Mistranslations, contrary meanings (do.), 230
(i) Repeated acts, discourses (do.)j
(?) Disregard of various readings (do ),
() Point of narration not discerned (do.),
(fl) Want of care in chronology (do.),
SECT. VL Errors in Natural Philosophy,
Joshua x. 12 illustration,..
Popular language of Scripture illustrations,
Herschel, Airey, &c.,
Two GBAND PACTS God says true; Knows
more than directly tells us,
EIBST FACT : No physical error in the Word
of God, ...
Ancient and modern false the-
ologies, &c.,
Scriptures no blunders, absur-
dities : various, and true ;
poetical, and true,
PACT : Intimations escape of science of
the Almighty,
Profound science of Scripture as
to the earth,
the heavens,
light,
plants, .
air,
mountains, primary
condary,
races of men,
seas,
submarine fires,
subterranean waters,
languages of men,
stars, . .
heaven, . .
e-
234
236
237
242
244
245
250
251
253
253
257
261
261
262
263
2(53
264
264
265
266
267
267
268
2C9
XXI
ANALYSIS.
God turns objections into testimonies difficul-
ties into proof, .... 270
SECT. VII. Declarations of StPaul, . . .271
1 Cor. vii. 10, 12, 25, &c. &c. (See Scripture
Index), ..... 271
CHAPTER V.
EVASIONS EXAMINED.
SECT. I. Does Inspiration pertain to thoughts only, or to
WOBDS also ? . . 275
Some confine to thoughts only, . . 275
KEPLY (I.) Contrary to testimony a Scrip-
ture of letters and words, . 276
(2.) Irrational also language, the
mirror of the soul, . . 276
(3.) Leads further " errors (more)
in ideas (than) in words," . 278
(4, 5.) Gratuitous hypothesis : useless, 278
(6.) Extreme inconsistency, . 279
(7.) Question relates to book, not to
writers : latter sometimes, for-
mer always, Inspired unwill-
* ing prophets, . 281
SECT. IT. The historical books, should they be excepted
from Inspiration ? . . . 286
Somethink their inspiration unnecessary, 6ui
K.EPLY (1.) To them Old Testament Prophets
andNew Testament Apostles give
striking, most respectful testi-
monies, . . . 287
(2. ) Our Lord's manner of quotation, 288
(3.) They reveal the character of God, 288
(4.) deep things of man, 288
(5 ) angelic nature and
office, . 289
(6.) Are full of the future, . 292
(7.) Their dramatic power and inde-
finable charm, . . . 293
(8) Divine brevity reserve, . 296
(;/) Divine prudence, foresight, wisdom, 300
SEPT. HE Details (insignificant), do they deserve exception ? 306
St Paul.- (See Scripture Index), . . 306
Important insight, lessons, inferences, 309, 315, 321
CHAPTER VI.
BACKED CBITICISM, ITS EELATION TO DIVINE INSPIRATION.
(A science noble in its object, services, history,
immense results j yet necessary. three warn-
ings), . . . . . 323
XX11 ANALYSIS.
Page
SECT. L Criticism a scientific inquirer, not a judge else
faith undermined and overthrown, . 324
SECT. IL Criticism an historian, not a soothsayer else en-
courages (really dismisses) impertinent and
idle questions, . . . _ JLc . 332
SECT. III. Criticism the doorkeeper, not the God, of the temple, 336
Advice illustration, a Roman traveller, 336
Counsel (the argument), study the Bible by
and for itself, . . . .339
The Bible its own witness, . . 340
its majesty, beauty above all
Divine action in smallest parts, 341
(1 ) Testimony of ministers, . 342
(2.) Interpreters, . . . 343
(3 ) Believers Luther Augustine, 343
TAKE AND READ, . . . .348
CHAPTER VIL
CONCLUSION.
aBOT. L 1. Retrospect, ..... 349
Inspiration not a system, but fact : the book is
Inspired : we have to do with its words, not
writers, ..... 349
Scripture entirely the word of man and GOD :
human individuality : not gradual inter-
mittent Inspiration, but " everywhere and
entirely" from God: this established by
Scripture, ..... 350
Scripture declares all prophetic words given
by God : all Old, all New Testament pro-
phetic, warranted by God : Examples of
the apostles and of the Lord Jesus Christ, 351
Objections considered : translations, readings,
Septuagint in New Testament, philosophical
errors, words of St Paul, . . . 352
Other objections : verbal Inspiration con-
tested, historical writings excluded, insig-
nificant details, &c., . . . 354
SECT. IT. 2. Religious: Bible above every thing (CHBISTIAN) , 355
Something above Bible, namely, 356
() Judaism,
(0) Romanist,
(y) Impure Protestantism,
(S) Mysticism,
Light and growing radiance of Scriptures,
Grace and glory,
356
356
357
358
359
.. . 363
" The whole written WOED is inspired by
God," 3GB
PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS.
A GLANCE at this book and its title may have prepos-
sessed certain minds against it, by creating two equally
erroneous impressions. These I would fain dissipate.
The Greek title " Theopneustia," although borrowed
from St Paul, and although it has long been used in
Germany, from not having-found its way into our lan-
guage, may, no doubt, have led more than one reader
to say to himself of the subject here treated, that it is
too learned and abstruse (scientifique) to be popular,
and too little popular to be important.
Yet I am bold to declare, that if any thing has given
me at once the desire and the courage to undertake it,
it is just the double conviction I entertain of its impor-
tance and its simplicity.
And, first of all, I do not think that, after we have
come to know that Christianity is divine, there can be
presented to our mind any question bearing more essen-
tially on the vitality of our faith than this : " Does the
Bible come from God? is it altogether from God?
or may it not be true, as some have maintained, that
there occur in it maxims purely human, statements
not exactly true, exhibitions of vulgar ignorance and
ill -sustained reasoning ? in a word, books, or portions
PREFATORY OBSERTATIONS.
of books, foreign to the interests of the faith, subject to
the natural weakness of the writer's judgment, and
alloyed with error?" Here we have a question that
admits of no compromise, a fundamental question a
question of life ! It is the first that confronts you on
opening the Scriptures, and with it your religion ought
to commence.
Were it the case, as you whom I now address will
have it, that all in the Bible is not important, does
not bear upon the faith, and does not relate to Jesus
Christ ; and were it the case, taking another view, that
in that book there is nothing inspired except what, in
your opinion, is important, does bear upon the faith,
and does relate to Jesus Christ; then your Bible is
quite a different book from that of the Fathers, of the
Reformers, and of the Saints of all ages. It is fallible;
theirs was perfect. It has chapters or parts of chap-
ters, it has sentences and expressions, to be excluded
from the number of the sentences and expressions that
are God's ; theirs was " all given by inspiration of
God," " all profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for cor-
rection, for instruction in righteousness, and for render-
ing the man of God perfect by faith in Christ Jesus."
In that case, one and the same passage is, in your judg-
ment, as remote from what it was in theirs as earth is
from heaven.
You may have opened the Bible, for example, at the
45th Psalm, or at the Song of Sougs; and while you
will see nothing there but what is most human in the
things of the earth a long epithalamium, or the love
communings of a daughter of Sharon and jer young
bridegroom they read there of the glories of the Church,
PLENARY AND PARTIAL INSPIRATION. 7
the endearments of God's love, the deep things of Jesus
Christ in a word, all that is most divine in the things
of heaven ; and if they found themselves unahle to
read of those things there, they knew at least that they
were there, and there they tried to find them.
Suppose now that we hoth take up one of St Paul's
epistles. While one of us will attribute such or such
a sentence, the meaning of which he fails to seize, or
which shocks his carnal sense, to the writer's Jewish
prejudices, to the most common intentions, to circum-
stances altogether human ; the other will set himself,
with profound respect, to scan the thoughts of the
Holy Ghost : he will believe these perfect even before
he has caught their meaning, and will put any apparent
insignificance or obscurity to the account of his own
dulness or ignorance alone.
Thus, while in the Bible of the one all has its object,
its place, its beauty, and its use, as in a tree, branches
and leaves, vessels and fibres, epidermis and bark even,
have all theirs ; the Bible of the other is a tree of
which some of the leaves and branches, some of the
fibres and the bark, have not been made by God.
But there is much more than this in the difference
between us ; for not only, according to your reply, we
shall have two Bibles, but no one can know what your
Bible really is.
It is human and fallible, say you, only in a certain
measure ; but who shall define that measure ? If it be
true that man, in putting his baneful impress upon it,
have left the stains of humanity there, who shall deter-
mine the depth of that impression, and the number of
those stains ? You have told me that it has its human
3
PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS.
part; but "what are the limits of that part, and who is to
fix them for me? Why, no one. These every one
must determine for himself, at the bidding of his own
judgment; in other words, this fallible portion of the
Scriptures will be enlarged in the inverse ratio of our
being illuminated by God's light, and a man will de-
prive himself of communications from above in the very
proportion that he has need of them ; in like manner
as we see idolaters make to themselves divinities that
are more or less impure, in proportion as they them-
selves are more or less alienated from the living and
holy God! Thus, then, every one will curtail the in-
spired Scriptures in different proportions, and making
for himself an infallible rule of that Bible, so corrected
by himself, will say to it : " Guide thou me henceforth,
for thou art my rule ! " like those makers of graven
images of whom Isaiah speaks, who make to them-
selves a god, and say to it, " Deliver me, lor thou art
my god." (Isa. xliv. 17.)
But this is not all ; what follows is of graver import
still. According to your reply, it is not the Bible only
that is changed, it is you.
Yes, even in presence of the passages Avhich you have
most admired you will have neither the attitude nor
the heart of a believer ! How can that be, after you have
summoned these along with the rest of the Scriptures
before the tribunal of your judgment, there to be pro-
nounced by you divine, or not divine, or semi-divine ?
What authority for your soul can there be in an utterance
which for you is infallible only in virtue of yourself?
Had it not to present itself at your bar, along with
other sayings of the same book, which you have pro-
PARTIAL INSPIRATION DESTRUCTIVE OF FAITH. 9
nounced to be wholly or partly human? Will your
mind, in that case, put itself into the humhle and sub-
missive posture of a disciple, after having held the place
of a judge ? This is impossible. The deference you
will show to it will be that perhaps of acquiescence,
never that of faith; of approval, never of adoration.
Do you tell me that you will believe in the divinity
of the passage ? but then it is not in God that you
will believe, but in yourself! This utterance pleases,
but does not govern you; it stands before you like a
lamp; it is not within you as an unction from above a
principle of light, a fountain of life! I do not believe
there ever was a Pope, however possessed with notions
of the importance of his own priestly office, who could
confidently address his prayers to a dead person, whom
he had himself, by canonizing him of his own plenary
authority, raised to the rank of the demigods. How,
then, shall a reader of the Bible, who has himself
canonized a passage of the Scriptures, however possessed
with a high idea of his own wisdom, possibly have the
disposition of a true believer with regard to such a pas -
sage ? "Will his mind come down from his pontifical
chair, and humble itself .before this utterance of thought,
which, but for himself, would remain human, or at least
doubtful ? No one tries to fathom the meaning of a
passage which he has himself legitimated, only in virtue
of a meaning which he thinks he has already found.
One submits only by halves to an authority which he
has had it in his power to decline, and which he has
once held to be doubtful. One worships but imperfectly
what he has first degraded.
Besides, and let this be carefully noted, inasmuch aa
10 PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS.
the entire divinity of such or such a passage of the .
Scriptures depends, in your view, not on its being found
in the book of God's oracles, but on its presenting cer-
tain traits of spirituality and wisdom to your wisdom
and your spirituality, the sentence that you pass cannot
always be so exempt from hesitation as that you shall
not retain, with regard to it, some of the doubts with
which you set out. Hence your faith will necessarily
participate in your uncertainties, and will be itself im-
perfect, undecided, conditional. As is the sentence, so
will be the faith ; and as is the faith, so will be the life.
But such is not the faith, neither is such the life of
God's elect.
But what will better show the importance of the
question which is about to occupy us is, that if one of
the two systems to which it may lead have, as we have
said, all its roots imbued with scepticism, its fruit in-
evitably will be a new unbelief.
How do we come to see that so many thousands can
every morning and evening open their Bibles without
once perceiving there doctrines which it teaches with
the utmost clearness? How can they thus, during
many a long year, walk on in darkness with the sun in
their hands ? Do they not hold these books to be a re-
velation from God ? Yes, but prepossessed with false
notions of the divine inspiration, and believing that there
still exists in Scripture an alloy of human error fain to
find in it, nevertheless, its reasonable utterances oi
thought, in order to their being authorized to believe
these divine they make it their study, as if uncon-
sciously, to give these a meaning that their own wisdom
approves; and thus not only do they render themselves
RESULTS OF PARTIAL INSPIRATION. 1 1
incapable of recognising therein the wisdom of God,
but they sink the Scriptures in their own respect. In
reading St Paul's epistles, for example, they will do
their utmost to find in them man's justification by the
law, his native innocence and bent towards that which
is good, the moral omnipotence of his will: the merit of
his works. But, then, what happens ? Alas ! just that
after having given the sacred writer such forced mean-
ings, they find his language so ill- conceived for his
assumed object, such ill-chosen terms for what he is
made to say, and such ill-sustained reasonings, that, as
if in spite of themselves, they lose any respect felt for
the letter of the Scriptures, and plunge into rationalism.
It is thus that, after having commenced with unbelief,
they reap a new unbelief as the fruit of their study;
darkness becomes the recompense of darkness, and that
terrible saying of Christ is fulfilled, " From him that
hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath."
Such, then, it is evident, is the fundamental impor-
tance of the great question with which we are about to
be occupied.
According to the answer which you, to whom we now
address ourselves, make to it, the arm of God's Word
is palsied for you ; the sword of the Spirit has become
blunted it has lost its temper and its power to pierce.
How could it henceforth penetrate your joints and mar-
row ? How could it become stronger than your lusts,
than your doubts, than the world, than Satan ? How
could it give you energy, victory, light, peace ? No !
It possibly may happen, at wide intervals of time, by a
pure effect of God's unmerited favour, that, in spite of
this dismal slate of a soul, a divine utterance may come
12 PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS.
and seize it at unawares; but it does not remain the less
true, that this disposition which judges the Scriptures,
and doubts beforehand of their universal inspiration, is
one of the greatest obstacles that we can oppose to their
acting with effect. " The word spoken," says St Paul
(Heb. iv. 2), " did not profit, not being mixed with
faith in them who heard it ;" while the most abundant
benedictions of that'same Scripture were at all times the
lot of the souls which received it, " not as the word oi
man, but which it is truly, as the word of God, working
effectually in them who believe." (1 Thess. ii. 13.)
It will thus be seen, that this question is of immense
importance in its bearing upon the vitality of our faith ;
and we are entitled to say, that between the two an-
swers that may be made to it, there lies the same great
gulf that must have separated two Israelites who might
both have seen Jesus Christ in the flesh, and both
equally owned him as a prophet ; but one of whom,
looking to his carpenter's dress, his poor fare, his hands
inured to labour, and his rustic retinue, believed further,
that he was not exempt from error and sin, as an ordi-
nary prophet ; whilst the other recognised in him Im-
manuel, the Lamb of God, the everlasting God, our
Righteousness, the King of kings, the Lord of lords.
The reader may not yet have admitted each of these
considerations ; but he will at least admit that I have
said enough to be entitled to conclude that it is worth
while to study such a question, and that, in weighing it,
you hold in your hands the most precious interests of the
people of God. This is all I desired in a preface. It was
the first point to which I wished to direct the reader's
attention beforehand, and now comes the second.
RELIGION AND THEOLOGY HOW RELATED. 13
If the study of this doctrine be the duty of all, that
study is also within the reach of all ; and the author
scruples not to say, that in writing his book, the dearest
object of his ambition has been to make it level to the
comprehension of all classes of readers.
Meanwhile, he thinks he hears many make this ob-
jection. You address yourself to men of learning, they
will say ; your book is no concern of ours : we confine
ourselves to religion, but here you give us theology.
Theology no doubt ! but, what theology ? Why, that
which ought to be the study of all the heirs of eternal
life, and with respect to which a very child may be a
theologian.
Religion and theology ! let us explain what we mean ;
for often are both these terms abused to the injury of
both, by people presuming to set the one against the
other. Is not theology defined in all our dictionaries
as " the science which has for its object, God and his
revelation ? " Now, when I was a boy at school, the
catechism of my childhood made this the designation of
my religion. " It is the science," it told me, " that
teaches us to know God and his Word, God and his
counsels, God in Christ." So, then, there is no diffe-
rence between them, in object, means, or aim. Their
object is truth ; their means, the Word of God ; their
aim, holiness. " Sanctify them, O Father, by thy truth :
thy Word is truth ! " Such is the aim contemplated by
both, as it was that of their dying Master. How, then,
shall we distinguish the one from the other ? By this
alone that theology is religion studied more methodi-
cally, and with the aid of more perfect instruments.
Men have contrived, no doubt, to make, under the
14 PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS.
name of theology, a confused compound of philosophy,
or the traditions of men with. God's word ; but that was
not theology it was only scholastic philosophy.
It is true that the term Religion is not always em-
ployed in its objective sense, to signify the science that
embraces the truths of our faith ; but it is used also,
with a subjective meaning, to designate rather the sen-
timents which those truths foster in the hearts of be-
lievers. Let these two meanings be kept distinct. This
is what we may do, and ought to do ; but to oppose the
one to the other, by calling the one Religion, the other
Theology, were a deplorable absurdity. This would be
to maintain, in other terms, that one might have the
religious sentiments without the religious doctrines from
which alone they spring; this would imply that you
would have a man to be moral without having any
religious tenets, pious without belief, a Christian with-
out Christ, an effect without a cause living without a
soul ! Deplorable illusion ! " Holy Father, this is
life eternal, that they might know thee the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."
But even were it rather in its objective sense that
people set themselves to oppose religion to theology
that is to say, the religion a Christian learns in his
native tongue in his Bible, to the religion which a
more accomplished person would study in the same
Bible with the aid of history and of the learned lan-
guages: still I would say, even in this case, Distinguish
between the two ; don't oppose them to each other ! Ought
not every true Christian to be a theologian as far as he
can ? Is he not enjoined to be learned in the Word of
God, nurtured in sound doctrine, rooted and established
RELIGION AND THEOLOGY HOW RELATED. 15
in the knowledge of Jesus Christ ? And was it not to
the multitude that our Lord said, in the midst of the
street, " Search the Scriptures."
Religion, then, in its objective meaning, bears the
same relation to theology that the globe does to astro-
nomy. They are distinct, and yet united ; and theology
renders the same services to religion that the astro-
nomy of the geometricians offers to that of seamen. A
ship captain might, no doubt, do without the Meca-
nique Celeste in finding his way to the seas of China, or
in returning from the Antipodes ; but even then it is
to that science that, while traversing the ocean with his
elementary notions, he will owe the advantage he de-
rives from his formulas, the accuracy of his tables, and
the precision of the methods which give him his longi-
tudes, and set his mind at ease as to the course he is
pursuing. Thus too, the Christian, in order to his tra-
versing the ocean of this world, and to his reaching the
haven to which God calls him, may dispense with the
ancient languages and the lofty speculations of theo-
logy ; but, after all, the notions of religion with which
he cannot dispense, will receive, in a great measure,
their precision and their certainty from theological
science. And while he steers towards eternal life with
his eyes fixed on the compass which God has given him,
still it is to theology that he will owe the certainty that
that heavenly magnet is the same that it was in the
days of the apostles that the instrument of salvation
has been placed intact in his hands, that its indications
are faithful, and that the needle never varies.
There was a time when all the sciences were myste-
rious, professing secresy, having their initiated persons,
16 PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS.
their sacred language, and their freemasonry. Physi-
cal science, geometry, medicine, grammar, history every
thing was treated of in Latin. Men soared aloft in the
clouds, far above the vulgar crowd ; and would drop
now and then from their hark sublime a few detached
leaves, which we were bound to take up respectfully,
and were not allowed to criticise. Now-a-days, all is
changed. Genius glories in making itself intelligible
to the mass of mankind ; and after having mounted up
to the ethereal regions of science, there to pounce upon
truth in her highest retreats, it endeavours to find a
method of coming down again, and approaching near
enough to let us know the paths it has pursued, and
the secrets it has discovered. But if such be at present
the almost universal tendency of the secular sciences, it
has been at all times the distinctive character of true
theology. That science is at the service of all. The
others may do without the people, as the people may do
without them ; true theology, on the contrary, has need
of flocks, as they again have need of it. It preserves
their religion ; and their religion preserves it in turn.
Woe to them when their theology languishes, and does
not speak to them ! "Woe to them when the religion of
the flocks leave it to go alone, and no longer esteems
it ! We ought then, both for its sake and for theirs,
to hold that it should speak to them, listen to them,
study in their sight, and keep its schools open to them
as our churches are.
When theology occupies the professor's chair in the
midst of Christian flocks, its relations with them, con-
stantly keeping before its eyes the realities of the
Christian life, constantly recall to it also the realities of
RELIGION AND THEOLOGY THEIR USES. 17
science : man's misery, the counsels of the Father, the
Redeemer's cross, the consolations of the Holy Ghost,
holiness, eternity. Then, too, the Church's conscience,
repressing its wanderings, overawes its hardihood, com-
pels it to be serious, and corrects the effects of that fa-
miliarity, so readily running into profaneness, with
which the science of the schools puts forth its hand
and touches holy things. In speaking to it, day after
day, of that life which the preaching of the doctrines of
the Cross nourishes in the Church (a life, without the
knowledge of which all its learning would be as in-
complete as the natural history of man were it de-
rived from the study of dead bodies), the religion of the
flocks disengages theology from its excessive readiness
to admire those branches of knowledge which do not
sanctify. It often repeats to it the question addressed
by St Paul to the perverted science of the Galatians :
" Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by
the hearing of faith ? " It disabuses it of the wisdom
of man ; it imbues it with reverence for the Word of
God, and (in that holy Word) for those doctrines of
the righteousness of faith which are " the power of
God our Saviour," and which ought to penetrate the
whole soul of its science. Thus does it teach it practi-
cally how to associate, in its researches, the work of
the conscience with that of the understanding, and
never to seek after God's truth but under the com-
bined lights of study and prayer.
And, on the other hand, theology renders in its
turn, to Christian flocks, services with which they can-
not long dispense without damage. It is it that watches
over the religion of a people, to see that the lips of the
18 PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS.
priest keep knowledge, and that the law may he had
from his mouth. It is it that preserves purity of doc-
trine in the holy ministry of the gospel, and the just
balancing of all truths in preaching. It is it that as-
sures the simple against the confident assertions of a
science inaccessible to them. It is it that goes for its
answers to the same quarters whence those assertions
have come ; which puts its finger on the sophisms of
the adversaries of truth, overawes them by its presence,
and compels them, before the flocks, to avoid exaggera-
tion, and to put some reserve on the terms they employ.
It is it that gives the alarm at the first and so often
decisive moment, when the language of religion among
a people begins to decline from the truth, and when
error, like a rising weed, sprouts and grows into a plant.
It then gives timely warning, and people hasten to root
it out.
It has ever happened that when flocks have been
pious, theology has thriven. She has accomplished her-
self with learning ; she has put due honour on studies
that require vigorous effort ; and, the better to capaci-
tate herself for searching the Scriptures, not only has
she desired to master all the sciences that can throw
light upon them, but she has infused life into all other
sciences, whether by the example of her own labours,
or by gathering around her men of lofty minds, or by
infusing into academical institutions a generous senti-
ment of high morality, which has promoted all their de-
velopments.
Thus it is that, in giving a higher character to all
branches of study, she has often ennobled that of a
whole people.
DEGRADING RELIGION, YOU DEGRADE ALL. 19
But, on the contrary, when theology and the people
have become indifferent to each other, and drowsy flocks
have lived only for this world, then theology herself
has given evident proofs of sloth, frivolity, ignorance,
or perhaps of a love of novelties; seeking a profane po-
pularity at any cost; affecting to have made discoveries
that are only whispered to the ear, that are taught in
academies, and never mentioned in the churches; keep-
ing her gates shut amid the people, and at the same
time throwing out to them from the windows douhts
and impieties, with the view of ascertaining the present
measure of their indifference; until at last she breaks
out into open scandal, in attacking doctrines, or in de-
nying the integrity or the inspiration of certain books,
or in giving audacious denials to the facts which they
relate.
And let a man beware of believing that the whole
people do not erelong feel the consequences of so enor-
mous a mischief. They will suffer from it even in their
temporal interests, and their national existence will be
compromised. In degrading their religion, you propor-
tionally lower their moral character; you leave them
without a soul. All things take their measure, in a
nation, according to the elevation that is given to heaven
among the people. If their heaven be low, every thing
is affected by it even on the earth. All there becomes
erelong more confined and more creeping; the future
becomes narrowed; patriotism becomes materialized;
generous traditions drop out of notice; the moral sense
loses its tone; material wellbeing engrosses all regard;
and all conservative principles, one after another, dis-
appear.
4
20 PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS.
We conclude then, on the one hand, that there exists
the most intimate union, not only between a people's
welfare and their religion, but between their religion
and true theology ; and, on the other hand, that if there
have always been most pertinent reasons for this science
being taught as such, for all and before all, never was
this character more necessary for it than when treating
of the doctrine which is about to occnrv us- It is the
doctrine of doctrines ; the doctrine that teaches us all
others, and in virtue of which alone they are doctrines;
the doctrine which is to the believer's soul what the air
is to his lungs necessary for birth in the Christian life
necessary for living in it necessary for advancing in
it to maturity, and persevering in it.
Such, then, has been the twofold view under which
this work has been composed.
Every part of it, I trust, will bear testimony to my
serious desire to make it useful to Christians of all
classes.
With this object I have thrown off the forms of the
school. Without entirely relinquishing, I have ab-
stained from multiplying, quotations in the ancient
tongues. In pressing the wonderful unanimity of Chris-
tian antiquity on this question, I have confined myself
to general facts. In fine, when I have had to treat
the various questions that bear upon this subject, and
which must be introduced in order to complete the
doctrine which it involves, I have thrown them all into
a separate chapter. And even there, against the advice
of some friends, I have employed a method considered
by them out of harmony with the general tone of the
book, but which to me has seemed fitted to enable the
GRAND OBJECT OF THIS WORK. 21
reader to take a clearer and more rapid view of the sub-
ject.
It is, then, under this simple and practical form that,
in presenting this work to the Church of God, I rejoice
that I can recommend it to the blessing of Him who
preached in the streets, and who, to John the Baptist,
pointed to this as the peculiar character of his mission :
" To the poor the gospel is preached."
"Well will it be if these pages confirm in the simpli-
city and the blissfulness of their faith those Christians
who, without learning, have already believed, through
the Scriptures, in the full inspiration of the Scriptures !
Well will it be if some weary and heavy-laden souls are
brought to listen more closely to that God who speaks
to them in everv line of his holy book! "Well will it
be if, through any thing said by us, some travellers Zion-
ward (like Jacob on his pilgrimage at the stone of
Bethel), after having reposed their wearied being with
too much indifierence on this book of God, should come
to behold at last that mysterious ladder which rises
from thence to heaven, and by which alone the messages
of grace can come down to their souls, and their prayers
mount up to God ! "Would that I could induce them,
in their turn, to pour the sacred unction of their grati-
tude and their joy, and that they also could exclaim :
.*' Surely the Lord is in this place ! this is the house of
God, and the gate of heaven!"
For myself, I fear not to say, that in devoting my-
self to the labour this work has cost me, I have often
nad to thank God for having called me to it ; for while
engaged in it, I have more than once beheld the divine
majesty fill with its brightness the whole temple of the
22 PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS.
Scriptures. Here have I seen all the tissues, coarse in
appearance, that form the vesture of the Son of man,
become white, as no fuller on earth could whiten them;
here have I often seen the Book illuminated with the
glory of God, and all its words seem radiant ; in a word,
I have felt what one ever experiences when maintain-
ing a holy and true cause, namely, that it gains in truth
and in majesty the more we contemplate it.
O my God, give me to love this Word of thine, and
to possess it, as much as thou has taught me to ad-
mire it!
" All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is as
the flower of the grass : the grass withereth, the flower
thereof fadeth, but the word of God abideth for ever ;
and it is this word which, by the gospel, has been
preached unto us."
THEOPNEUSTJA;
OB,
PLENAEY INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
OUB object in this book is, with God's help, and on
the sole authority of his Word, to set forth, establish,
and defend, the Christian doctrine of Divine Inspiration.
CHAPTER I.
DEFINITION OF THEOPNEU8TIA.
SECTION I.
This term is used for the mysterious power which the
Divine Spirit put forth on the authors of the scriptures
of the Old and New Testament, in order to their com-
posing these as they have been received by the Church
of God at their hands. " All Scripture," says an
apostle, " is theopneustic." 1
1 2 Tim. iii. 16. (Theopneust, less euphonious, would be more
exact.)
24 MEANING OF THEOPNEUSTIA.
This Greek expression, at the time when St Paul
employed it, was new perhaps even among the Greeks;
yet though the term was not used among the idolatrous
Greeks, such was not the case among the Hellenistic
Jews. The historian Josephus, 1 a contemporary of St
Paul's, employs another closely resembling it in his
first book against Apion, when, in speaking of all the
prophets who composed, says he, the twenty- two sacred
books of the Old Testament, 2 he adds, that they wrote
according to the pneustia (or the inspiration) that comes
from God. 3 And the Jewish philosopher Philo, 4 him-
self a contemporary of Josephus, in the account he has
left us of his embassy to the emperor Caius, making
use, in his turn, of an expression closely resembling
that of St Paul, calls the Scriptures "tkeockrest oracles;" 8
that is to say, oracles given under the agency and dic-
tation of God.
Theopneustia 'is not a system, it is a fact; and this
fact, like every thing else that has taken place in the
history of redemption, is one of the doctrines of our
faith.
SECTION II.
Meanwhile it is of consequence for us to say, and it is
of consequence that it be understood, that this miracu-
lous operation of the Holy Ghost had not the sacred
writers themselves for its object for these were only his
instruments, and were soon to pass away; but that its
objects were the holy books themselves, -which were des-
tined to reveal from age to age, to the Church, the coun-
sels of God, and which were never to pass away.
The power then put forth on those men of God, and
of which they themselves were sensible only in very
* P. 1036, edit. Aurel. Allob. 1611.
8 See on this number our cbap. iii. sect. 2, ques. 27.
a. TCU QttS. * P. 1022, edit. Fraucof.
@tov).
INSPIRATION ASSERTED NOT EXPLAINED. 25
different degrees, has not been precisely defined to us.
Nothing authorizes us to explain it. Scripture has
never presented either its manner or its measure as an
object of study. What it offers to our faith is solely
the inspiration of what they say the divinity of the
book they have written. In this respect it recognises
no difference among them. "What they say, they tell
us, is theopneustic : their book is from God. Whether
they recite the mysteries of a past more ancient than
the creation, or those of a future more remote than the
coming again of the Son of man, or the eternal coun-
sels of the Most High, or the secrets of man's heart,
or the deep things of God whether they describe
their own emotions, or relate what they remember, or
repeat contemporary narratives, or copy over genea-
logies, or make extracts from uninspired documents
their writing is inspired, their narratives are directed
from above ; it is always God who speaks, who relates,
who ordains or reveals by their mouth, and who, in
order to this, employs their personality in different
measures : for " the Spirit of God has been upon them,"
it is written, " and his word has been upon their
tongue." And though it be always the word of man,
since they are always men who utter it, it is always, too,
the word of God, seeing that it is God who superin-
tends, employs, and guides them. They give their
narratives, their doctrines, or their commandments,
" not with the words of man's wisdom, but with the
words taught by the Holy Ghost;" and thus it is that
God himself has not only put his seal to all these facts,
and constituted himself the author of all these com-
mands, and the revealer of all these truths, but that,
further, he has caused them to be given to his Church
in the order, and in the measure, and in the terms
which he has deemed most suitable to his heavenly
purpose.
Were we asked, then, how this work of divine in-
spiration has been accomplished in the men of God,
we should reply, that we do not know; that it does
26 OPINIONS OP SCHLEIERMACI1ER., DB WETTE, ETC.
not behove us to know; and that it is in the same
ignorance, and with a faith quite of the same kind,
that we receive the doctrine of the new birth and sanc-
tification of a soul by the Holy Ghost. We believe
that the Spirit enlightens that soul, cleanses it, raises
t, comforts it, softens it. We perceive all these effects ;
we admire and we adore the cause ; but we have found
it our duty to be content never to know the means by
which this is done. Be it the same, then, with regard
to divine inspiration.
And were we, further, called to say at least what
the men of God experienced in their bodily organs, in
their will, or in their understandings, while engaged in
tracing the pages of the sacred book, we should reply,
that the powers of inspiration were not felt by all to
the same degree, and that their experiences were not
at all uniform ; but we might add, that the knowledge
of such a fact bears very little on the interests of our
faitb, seeing that, as respects that faith, we have to do
with the book, and not with the man. It is the book
that is inspired, and altogether inspired : to be assured
of this ought to satisfy us.
SECTION III.
Three descriptions of men, in these late times, without
disavowing the divinity of Christianity, and without ven-
turing to decline the authority of the Scriptures, have
thought themselves authorized to reject this doctrine.
Some of these have disowned the very existence of
this action of the Holy Ghost ; others have denied its
universality ; others, again, its plenitude.
The first, like Dr Schleiermacher, 1 Dr De Wette, and
many other German divines, reject all miraculous in-
spiration, and are unwilling to attribute to the sacred
writers any more than Cicero accorded to the poets
i Schleiermacher, der Christliche Glaube, band i. 8. 115.
OP MICHAELIS, TWESTEN, PYE SMITH, ETC. 2?
vfflatum spiritus divini " a divine action of nature,
an interior power resembling the other vital forces of
nature." 1
The second, like Dr Michaelis, 9 and like Theodore .of
Mopsuestia, 8 while admitting the existence of a divine
inspiration, would confine it to a part only of the sacred
books : to the first and fourth of the four evangelists,
for example; to a part of the epistles, to a part of
Moses, a part of Isaiah, a part of Daniel. These por-
tions of the Scriptures, say they, are from God, the
others are from man.
The third class, in fine, like M. Twesten in Ger-
many, and like many divines in England,* extend, it
is true, the notion of a divine inspiration to all parts of
the Bible, but not to all equally (nickt gleichmaessig).
Inspiration, as they understand it, might be universal
indeed, but unequal; often imperfect, accompanied
with innocent errors;- and carried to very different
degrees, according to the nature of different passages :
of which degrees they constitute themselves, more o^
less, the judges.
Many of these, particularly in England, have gone
so far as to distinguish four degrees of divine inspira-
tion : the inspiration of superintendence, they have said,
in virtue of which the sacred writers have been con-
stantly preserved from serious error in all that relates
to faith and life ; the inspiration of elevation, by which
the Holy Ghost, further, by carrying up the thoughts
of the men of God into the purest regions of truth,
must have indirectly stamped the same characters of
holiness and grandeur on their words ; the inspiration
of direction^ under the more powerful action of which
the sacred writers were under God's guidance in regard
to what they said and abstained from saying ; finally,
1 De Wette, Lehrbuch Anmerk. Twesten, Vorlesungen uber die
Dogmatik, tome i. p. 424, &c.
Michaelis, Introd. to the New Testament.
8 See our chap. v. sect. 2, quest. 44.
Drs Pye Smith, Dick, Wilson.
28 WHAT IT CONCERNS US TO KNOW.
the inspiration of suggestion. Here, they say, all the
thoughts, and even the words, have been given hy God,
by means of a still more energetic and direct operation
of his Spirit.
" The Theopneustia," says M. Twesten, " extends un-
questionably even to words, but only when the choice
or the employment of them is connected with the reli-
gious life of the soul ; for one ought, in this respect,"
he adds, "to distinguish between the Old and New
Testament, between the Law and the Gospel, between
history and prophecy, between narratives and doctrines,
between the apostles and their apostolical assistants."
To our mind these are all fantastic distinctions ; the
Bible has not authorized them ; the Church of the first
eight centuries of the Christian era knew nothing of
them ; and we believe them to be erroneous in them-
selves, and deplorable in their results.
Our design then, in this book, in opposition to these
three systems, is to prove the existence, the univer-
sality, and the plenitude of the divine inspiration of the
Bible.
First of all, it concerns us to know if there has been
a divine and miraculous inspiration for the Scriptures.
We say that there has. Next, we have to know if the
parts of Scripture that are divinely inspired are equally
and entirely so ; or, in other terms, if God have pro-
vided, in a certain though mysterious manner, that the
very words of his holy book should always be what
they ought to be, and that it should contain no error.
This, too, we affirm to be the case. Finally, we have
to know whether what is thus inspired by God in the
Scriptures, be a part of the Scriptures, or the whole of
the Scriptures. We say that it is the whole Scriptures;
the historical books as well as the prophecies; the Gos-
pels as well as the Song of Solomon; the Gospels of
Mark and Luke, as well as those of John and Matthew;
the history of the shipwreck of St Paul in the waters
of the Adriatic, as well as that of the shipwreck of the
old world in the waters of the flood ; the scenes of
PASCAL AND NEWTON. 29
Mamre beneath the tents of Abraham, as well as those
of the day of Christ in the eternal tabernacles ; the
prophetic prayers in which the Messiah, a thousand
years before his first advent, cries in the Psalms, " My
God, my God, why hast, thou forsaken me ? they have
pierced my hands and my feet they have cast lots
upon my vesture they look and stare at me" as well
as the narratives of them hy St John, St Mark, St
Luke, or St Matthew.
In other words, it has heen our object to establish
by the Word of God that the Scripture is from God,
that the Scripture is throughout from God, and that the
Scripture throughout is entirely from God.
Meanwhile, however, we must make ourselves clearly
understood. In maintaining that all Scripture is from
God, we are very far from thinking that man goes for
nothing in it. We shall return in a subsequent section
to this opinion ; but we have felt it necessary to state
it here. There, all the words are man's ; as there, too,
all the words are God's. In a certain sense, the Epistle
to the Romans is altogether a letter of Paul's ; and in
a still higher sense, the Epistle to the Romans is alto
gather a letter of God's.
Pascal might have dictated one of his Provincial Let-
ters to some Clermont artisan, and another to the Ab
bess of Port- Royal. Could the former have been on
that account less Pascalian than all the rest? Un-
doubtedly not. The great Newton, when he wished
to hand over to the world his marvellous discoveries,
might have employed some Cambridge youth to write
out the fortieth, and some college servant the forty- first
proposition of his immortal work, the Principle/,, while
he might have dictated the remaining pages to Barrow
and Halley. Should we any the less possess the disco-
veries of his genius, and the mathematical reasonings
which lead us to refer to one and the same law all the
movements in the universe ? Would the whole work be
any the less his? No, undoubtedly. Perhaps, how-
ever, some one at his leisure might have further taken
30 WE HAVE TO DO WITH THE BOOK NOT THE MEN.
some interest in knowing what were the emotions of
those two great men, or the simple thoughts of that
boy, or the honest musings of that domestic, at the time
that their four pens, all alike docile, traced the Latin
sentences that were dictated to them. You may have
. heen told that the two latter, as they plied the quill,
allowed their thoughts to revert indifferently to past
scenes in the gardens of the city, or in the courts of
Trinity College; while the two professors, following
with the most intense interest every thought of their
friend, and participating in his sublime career, like
eaglets on their mother's back, sprang with him into the
loftiest elevations of science, borne up by his mighty
wings, soaring with delight into the new and bound'
less regions which he had opened to them. Neverthe-
less, you may have been told, among the lines thus dic-
tated, there may have been some which neither the boy
nor even the professors were capable of understanding.
These details are of little consequence, you would have
replied ; I will not waste any time upon them ; I will
study the book. Its preface, its title, it first line, and
its last line, all its theorems, easy or difficult, under-
stood or not understood, are from the same author, and
that is enough. Whoever the writers may have been,
and however different the respective elevation of their
thoughts, their hand, faithful to its task, and superin-
tended while engaged in it, has equally traced their
master's thoughts on the same roll of paper ; and there
I can always study, with equal confidence, in the very
words of his genius, the mathematical principles of
Newton's philosophy.
Such is the fact of the divine inspiration of the Scrip-
tures; nearly to this extent, that in causing his hooks to
be written by inspired men, the Holy Ghost Has almost
always, more or less, employed the instrumentality of
their understanding, their will, their memory, and all
the powers of their personality, as we shall erelong have
occasion to repeat. And it is thus that God, who de-
sired to make known to his elect, in a hook that was to
MAN'S PART IN GOD'S BOOK. 31
hst for ever, the spiritual principles of divine philoso-
phy, has caused its pages to be written, in the course of
a period of sixteen hundred years, by priests, by kings,
by warriors, by shepherds, by publicans, by fishermen,
by scribes, by tentmakers, associating their affections
and their faculties therewith, more or less, according as
he deemed fit. Such, then, is God's book. Its first
line, its last line, all its teachings, understood or not
understood, are by the same author; and that ought to
suffice for us. Whoever may have been the writers
whatever their circumstances, their "impressions, their
comprehension of the book, and the measure of their
individuality in this powerful and mysterious operation
they have all written faithfully and under superintend-
ence in the same roll, under the guidance of one and
the same Master, for whom a thousand years are as one
day; and the result has been the Bible. Therefore I
will not lose time in idle questions; I will study the
book. It is the word of Moses, the word of Amos, the
word of John, the word of Paul ; but still the thoughts
expressed are God's thoughts, and the words are God's
words. " Thou, Lord, hast spoken by the mouth of thy
servant David." " The Spirit of the Lord spake by
me," said he, " and his word was in my tongue." 1
It would then, in our view, be holding very erroneous
language to say certain passages in the Bible are man's,
and certain passages in the Bible are God's. No; every
verse without exception is man's; and every verse with-
out exception is God's, whether we find him speaking
there directly in his own name, or whether he employs
the entire personality of the sacred writer. And as
St Bernard has said of the living works of the regen-
erated man, " that our will does nothing there with-
out grace, but that grace does nothing there without
our will;" so ought we to say, that in the Scriptures God
has done nothing but by man, and man has done no-
thing but by God.
1 Acts iv. 26; 2 Sara, xxiii. 1, 2. See <rar chap. ii. sect. 2.
5
32 WITH INSPIRATION AS WITH GRACE.
In fact, it is with divine inspiration as with efficacious
grace. In the operations of the Holy Ghost whilo
causing the sacred books to be written, and in those of
the same divine agent while converting a soul, and
causing it to advance in the ways of sanctification, man
is in different respects entirely active and entirely pas-
sive. God does all there; man does all there; and it
may be said for both of these works what St Paul said
of one of them to the Philippians, " It is God that
worketh in you to will and to do" 1 Thus you will see
that in the Scriptures the same 'operations are attributed
alternately to God and to man. God converts, and it
is man that converts himself. God circumcises the
heart, God gives a new heart; and it is man that should
circumcise his heart, and make himself a new heart.
" Not only because, in order to obtain such or such an
effect, we ought to employ the means to obtain such or
such an effect," says the famous President Edwards in his
admirable remarks against the errors of the Arminians,
" but because this effect itself is our act, as it is our
duty ; God producing all, and we acting all." 2
Such, then, is the "Word of God. It is God speaking
in man, God speaking by man, God speaking as man,
God speaking for man ! This is what we have asserted,
and must now proceed to prove. Possibly, however, it
will be as well that we should first give a more precise
definition of this doctrine.
SECTION IV.
In point of theory, it were allowable to say that a
religion might be divine without the books that teach
it being miraculously inspired. It were possible, for
example, to figure to ourselves a Christianity without
divine inspiration; and one might conceive, perhaps,
that all the miracles of our faith have been performed
Phil. ii. 13. 2 Edwards' Remarks.&c., p. 251.
CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CHRISTIANS. 33
with the single exception of this one. On this sup-
position (which nothing authorizes), the everlasting
Father would have given his Son to the world ; the
creating Word, made flesh, would have submitted for
us to the death of the cross, and caused to descend
from heaven upon his apostles the spirit of understand-
ing and the power of working miracles ; but, all these
mysteries of redemption once consummated, he might
have relinquished to these men of God the care of
writing, according to their own wisdom, our sacred
books ; and their writings would thus have presented
no more than the natural language of their superna-
tural illuminations, of their convictions, and their
charity. Such an order of things, no doubt, is hut
an idle supposition, directly opposed to the testimony
which the Scriptures have rendered to what they are.
But without saying here that it resolves nothing, and
that, miracle for miracle, that of illumination is not less
inexplicable than that of inspiration ; without saying,
farther, that the Word of God possesses a divine power
which belongs- to it alone such an order of things,
granting it were a reality, would have exposed us to
innumerable errors, and plunged us into the most dis-
mal uncertainty. Upon what testimony could, in that
case, our faith have rested? On something said by
men ? But faith is founded only on the Word of God.
(Rom. x. 17.) In such a system, then, you would
only have had a Christianity without Christians. De-
prived of any security against the imprudence of the
writers,- you could not even have given their books the
authority at present possessed in the Church by those
of Augustine, Bernard, Luther, and Calvin,- or of so
many other men whom the Holy Ghost enlightened
with a knowledge of the truth. We are, in fact, suffi-
ciently aware how many imprudent expressions and
erroneous propositions have found their way into the
midst even of the finest pages of those admirable doc-
tors. And yet the apostles (on the supposition we
have made) would have been far more subject to
34 ANOTHER DEFINITION.
serious mistakes even than they were, since they would
not have had, like the doctors of the Church, a Word
of God by which to direct their own ; and since they
themselves would have had to compose the whole lan-
guage of religious science. (A science is more than
half formed when its language is formed.) What de-
plorable and inevitable errors must have necessarily
accompanied, in their case, this revelation without di-
vine inspiration ! and in what deplorable doubts would
their hearers have been left! errors in the selection
of facts, errors in the appreciation of them, errors in
the statement of them, errors in the mode of conceiv-
ing the relations they bear to doctrines, errors in the
expression of those very doctrines, errors of omission,
errors of language, errors of exaggeration, errors in
adopting certain national prejudices, or prejudices arising
from a man's rank or party, errors in the foresight of
the future, and in judgments pronounced upon the past.
But, thanks be to God, it is not thus with our
sacred books. They contain no error; they are written
throughout by inspiration of God. " Holy men spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;" they did so,
" not with words that man's wisdom teacheth, but with
words which the Spirit of God taught;" in such sort,
that not one of these words should be neglected, and
that we are called to respect them and to study them,
even to their smallest iota and their slightest jot : for
" this Scripture is pure, like silver refined seven times :
it is perfect."
These assertions, which are themselves testimonies
of the Word of God, have already comprised our last
definition of Divine Inspiration, and lead us to charac-
terise it, finally, as that inexplicable power which the
Divine Spirit put forth of old on the authors of holy
Scripture, in order to their guidance even in the em-
ployment of the words they used, and to preserve them
alike from all error and from all omission.
This new definition, which might appear complex,
is not so really ; for the two traits of which it is com-
DIFFERENT KINDS OF PROOF. 35
posed are equivalent, and to admit the one is to accept
the other.
We propose them disjunctively to the assent of our
readers, and we offer them the alternative of accepting
either. One has more precision, the other more sim-
plicity, in so far as it presents the doctrine under a
form more disengaged from all questions relative to
the mode of inspiration, and to the secret experiences
of the sacred writers. Let either be fully accepted,
and then there will have been rendered to the Scrip-
tures the honour and the credit to which they are
entitled.
What we propose, therefore, is to establish the doc-
trine of Divine inspiration under one or other of these
two forms :
The Scriptures are given and warranted by God, even
in their language ; and, The Scriptures contain no error
(whereby we understand that they say all that they
ought to say, and that they do not say what they ought
not to say.)
Now, how shall a man establish this doctrine ? By
the Scriptures, and only by the Scriptures. Once that we
have recognised these as true, we must go to them to be
taught what they are ; and once that they have told us
that they are inspired of God, it belongs to them farther
to tell us how they are so, and how far they are so.
To attempt the proof of their inspiration a priori by
arguing from that miracle being necessary for the se-
curity of our faith would be to adopt a feeble mode of
reasoning, and almost to imitate, in one sense, the pre-
sumption which, in another sense, imagines a priori
four degrees of divine inspiration. Further; to think of
establishing the entire inspiration of the Scriptures on
the consideration of their beauty, their constant wisdom,
their prophetic foresight, and all the characters of
divinity which occur in them, would be to build on
arguments no doubt just, but contestable, or at least
contested. It is solely on the declarations of holy
Scripture, therefore, that we have to take our stand.
36 INSPIRATION A DOCTRINE.
We have no authority hut that for the doctrines of our
faith ; and divine inspiration is just one of those doc-
trines.
Here, however, let us anticipate a misapprehension.
It may happen that some reader, still hut feebly estab-
lished in his Christianity, mistaking our object, and
thinking to glance through our book in search of
arguments which may convince him, might find himself
disappointed, and might conceive himself authorized to
charge our line of argument with some vicious reason-
ing, as if we wanted to prove in it- the inspiration of the
Scriptures by the inspiration of the Scriptures. It is
of consequence that we should put him right. We have
not written these pages for the disciples of Porphyry,
or of Voltaire, or of Rousseau ; and it has not been our
object to prove that the Scriptures are worthy of belief.
Others have done this, and it is not our task. We
address ourselves to men who respect the Scriptures,
and who admit their veracity. To these we attest, that,
being true, they say that they are inspired; and that,
being inspired, they declare that they are so throughout:
whence we conclude that they necessarily must be so.
Certainly, of all truths, this doctrine is one of the
simplest and the clearest to minds meekly and ra-
tionally submissive to the testimony of the Scriptures.
No doubt modern divines may be heard to represent it
as full of uncertainties and difficulties ; but they who
have desired to study it only by the light of God's
Word, have been unable to perceive those difficulties, or
to find those uncertainties. Nothing, on the contrary,
is more clearly or oftener taught in the Scriptures than
the Inspiration of the Scriptures. Accordingly, the
ancients knew nothing on this subject of the embarrass-
ments and the doubts of the doctors of the present day:
for them the Bible was from God, or it was not from
God. On this point antiquity presents an admirable
unanimity. 1 But since the moderns, in imitation of
1 See on this subject the learned dissertation in which Dr Rudel-
bach establishes the sound doctrines on inspiration historically, as
TESTIMONY OF SCRIPTtTRK. 37
the Talmudistic Jews and Kabbins of the middle ages,
have imagined, learned distinctions between four or five
different degrees of inspiration, who can wonder that for
them difficulties and uncertainties have been multiplied?
Contesting what the Scriptures teach, and explaining
what the Scriptures do not teach, it is easy to see how
they come to be embarrassed ; but for this they have only
their own rashness to blame.
So very clear, indeed, is this testimony which the
Scriptures render to their own inspiration, that one may
well feel amazed that, among Christians, there should
be any diversities of opinion on so well-defined a sub-
ject. But the evil is too easily explained by the power
of preconceived opinions. The mind once wholly
pre-occupied by- objections of its own raising, sacred
passages are perverted from their natural meaning in
proportion as those objections present themselves ; and,
by a secret effort of thought, people try to reconcile these
with the difficulties that embarrass them. The plenary
inspiration of the Scriptures is, in spite of the Scriptures,
denied (as the Sadducees denied the resurrection), be-
cause the miracle is thought inexplicable ; but we must
recollect the answer made by Jesus Christ, " Do ye not
therefore err, because ye know not THE SCRIPTURES,
nor THE POWER OF GOD?" (Mark xii. 24, 27.) It
is, therefore, because of this too common disposition
of the human mind, that we have thought it best not to
present the reader with our scriptural proofs until after
having completed our definition of divine inspiration,
by an attentive examination of the part to be assigned
in it to the individuality of the sacred writers. This
will be the subject of the following section. No less do
we desire being able to present the reader with a more
didactic expression of the doctrine that occupies us, and
of some of the questions connected with it : but we have
thought that a more fitting place might be found for
we have sought to establish them by Scripture. (Zeitschrift f iii
die gesammte Lutherisclie Theologie und Kirche. von Rudelbach
und Guericke, 1840.)
3S INDIVIDUALITY OP THE WRITERS.
this development elsewhere, partly because it will he
more favourably received after our scriptural proofs
shall have been considered ; partly because we have no
desire, by employing the forms of the school, to repel, at
the very threshold, unlearned readers who may have
taken up these pages with the idea of finding something
in them for the edification of their faith.
SECTION V.
ON THE INDIVIDUALITY OP THE SACKED AVRITEBS.
The individuality of the sacred writers, so profoundly
stamped on the books they have respectively written,
seems to many impossible to be reconciled with a plenary
inspiration. No one, say they, can read the Scriptures
without being struck with the differences of language,
conception, and style, discernible in their authors; so that
even were the titles of the several books to give us no
intimation that we were passing from one author to
another, still we should almost instantly discover, from
the change of their character, that we had no longer to
do with the same writer, but that a new personage had
taken the pen. This diversity reveals itself even on
comparing one prophet with another prophet, and one
apostle with another apostle. Who could read the
writings of Isaiah and Ezekiel, of Amos and Hosea, of
Zephaniah and Habakkuk, of Jeremiah and Daniel, and
proceed to study those of Paul and Peter, or of John,
without observing, with respect to each of them, how
much his views of the truth, his reasonings, and his lan-
guage, have been influenced by his habits, his condition
in life, his genius, his education, his recollections all
the circumstances, in short, that have acted upon his
outer and inner man ? They tell us what they saw, and
just as they saw it. Their memory is put into requisition,
their imagination is called into exercise, their affections
are drawn out their whole being is at work, and their
FALSE CONSEQUENCES DEDUCED FROM IT. 39
moral physiognomy is clearly delineated. We are sen-
sible that the composition of each has greatly depended,
both as to its essence and its form, on its author's cir-
cumstances and peculiar turn of mind. Could the son
of Zebedee have composed the Epistle to the Romans, as
we have received it from the apostle Paul? Who
would think of attributing to him the Epistle to the
Hebrews ? And although the Epistles general of Peter
were without their title, who would ever think of ascrib-
ing them to John ? It is thus, likewise, with the evan-
gelists. All four are very distinctly recognisable,
although they all speak of the same Master, profess the
same doctrines, and relate the same acts. Such, we
are told, is the fact, and the following consequences are
boldly deduced from it :
1. Were it God who speaks alone and constantly
in the Scriptures, we should see, in their various parts,
an uniformity which is not to be found there.
2. It must be admitted that two different impulses
have acted at the same time on the same authors, while
they were composing the Scriptures ; the natural im-
pulses of their individuality, and the miraculous im-
pulses of inspiration.
3. There must have resulted from the conflict, the
concurrence, or the balanced action of these two forces,
an inspiration variable, gradual, sometimes entire,
sometimes imperfect, and ofttimes even reduced to the
feeble measure of a mere superintendence.
4. The variable power of the Divine Spirit, in this
combined action, must have been in the ratio of the
importance and the difficulty of the matters treated of
by the sacred author. He might even have abstained
from any intervention when the judgment and the re-
collections of the writer could suffice, inasmuch as God
never performs useless miracles.
" It belongs not to man to say where nature ends,
and where inspiration begins," says Bishop Wilson. 1
1 Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity, p. 606.
40 ALLEGED DEGREES OP INSPIRATION.
" The exaggeration we find in the notions which some
have entertained of inspiration," says Dr Twesten,
*' does not consist in their having extended them to all,
but in their having extended them to all equally. If
inspiration does not exclude the personal action of the
sacred authors, no more does it destroy all influence
proceeding from human imperfection. But we may
suppose this influence to be more and more feeble in the
writers, in proportion as the matter treated of is more
intimately -related to Christ." 1
Dr Dick recognises three degrees of inspiration in
the holy Scriptures: "1. There are many things in
the Scriptures which the writers might have known,
and probably did know, by ordinary means
In these cases, no supernatural influence was neces-
sary to enlighten and invigorate their minds ; it was
only necessary that they should be infallibly preserved
from error. 2. There are other passages of Scripture,
in composing which the minds of the writers must
have been supernaturally endowed with more than or-
dinary vigour 3. It is manifest, with respect to
nxiny passages of Scripture, that the subjects of which
they treat must have been directly revealed to the wri-
ters." 2
5 Hence it follows, that if this plenary inspiration
were sometimes necessary, still, with respect to matters
at once easy and of no religious importance, there might
be found in the Scriptures some harmless errors, and some
of those stains ever left by the hand of man on all he
touches. While the energies of the divine mind, by an
action always powerful, and often victorious, enlarged
the comprehension of the men of God, purified their
affections, and led them to seek out, from among all
their recollections of the past, those which might be
most usefully transmitted to the Church of God, the
natural energies of their own minds, left to themselves
in so far as regarded all details of no consequence either
1 Vorles. neber die Dogmatik, tome i.
2 See an Essay on the Inspiration of the -Holy Scriptures, by the
late John Dick, D.D. Fourth edition. Glasgow, 1840. Chapter 1.
HITMAN INDIVIDUALITY ACKNOWLEDGED. 41
to faith or virtue, may hare led to the occurrence in the
Scriptures of some mixture of inaccuracy and imperfec-
tion. " We must not therefore," says M. Twesten.
" attribute an unlimited infallibility to the Scripture, as
if there were no error there. No doubt God is truth,
and in matters of importance all that is from him is
truth ; but if all be not. of equal importance, all does not
then proceed equally from him ; and if inspiration does
not exclude the personal action of- the sacred authors,
no more does it destroy all influence of human imper-
fection." x
All these authors include in their assumptions and
conclusions the notion, that there are some passages in
the Scriptures quite devoid of importance, and that there
are others alloyed with error. We shall erelong repel
with all our might both these imputations ; but this is
not yet the place for it. The only question we have to
do with here, is that respecting the living and personal
form under which the Scriptures of God have been given
to us, and its alleged incompatibility with the fact of a
plenary inspiration. To this we proceed to reply.
1. We begin by declaring how far we are from con-
testing the fact alleged, while, however, we reject the
false consequences that are deduced from it. So far
are we from not acknowledging this human indivi-
duality stamped throughout on our sacred books, that,
on the contrary, it is with profound gratitude with
an ever-growing admiration that we contemplate this
living, actual, dramatic, humanitary character diffused
with so powerful and charming an effect through all
parts of the book of God. Yes (we cordially unite
with the objectors in saying it), here is the phraseology,
the tone, the accent of a Moses ; there, of a John :
here, of an Isaiah ; there, of an Amos : here, of a Da-
niel or of a Peter ; there, of a Nehemiah, there again
of a Paul. We recognise them, listen to them, see
them. Here, one may say, there is no room for mis-
take We admit the fact ; we delight in studying it ;
1 Ut supra.
42 INSPIRATION INEXPLICABLE.
we profoundly admire it ; and we see in it, as we shall
have occasion more than once to repeat, one additional
proof of the divine wisdom which has dictated the
Scriptures.
2. Of what consequence to the fact of the divine
inspiration is the ahsence or the concurrence of the
sacred writers' affections? Cannot God equally em-
ploy them or dispense with them ? He who can make
a statue speak, can he not, as he pleases, make a child
of man speak ? He who rebuked by means of a dumb
animal the madness of one prophet, can he not put into
another prophet the sentiments or the words which suit
best the plan of his revelations ? He that caused to
come forth from the wall a hand, without any mind of
its own to direct it, that it might write for him those
terrible words, " Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin," could he
not equally guide the intelligent and pious pen of his
apostle, in order to its tracing for him such words as
these : " 1 say the truth in Christ, and my conscience
bears trie witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great
heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart, for my
brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh^ and who
are Israelites" t Know you how God acts, and how
he abstains from acting? "Will you teach us the
mechanism of inspiration ? "Will you say what is the
difference between its working where individuality is
discoverable, and its working where individuality is not
discoverable? Will you explain to us why the con-
currence of the thoughts, the recollections, and the
emotions of the sacred writers, should diminish aught
of their theopneustia ? and will you tell us whether this
very concurrence may not form part of it ? There is a
gulf interposed betwixt the fact of this individuality
and the consequence you deduce from it; and your
understanding is no more competent to descend into
that gulf to contest the reality of theopneustia than ours
is to explain it. Was there not a great amount of indi-
viduality in the language of Caiaphas, when that wicked
man, full of the bitterest spite, abandoning himself to
GOD ACTS BY MEANS. 43
the counsels of his own evil heart, and little dreaming
that he was giving utterance to the words of Gad, cried
out in the Jewish council, " Ye know nothing at all,
nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man
should die for the people?" Certainly there was in
these words, we should say, abundance of individuality;
and yet we find it written that Caiaphas spake this not
of himself (>' lauroD), but that, being high priest for
that year, " he prophesied," unconsciously, that Jesus
should die, " in order that he might gather into one the
children of God that were scattered abroad." (John
xi. 49-52.)
Why, then, should not the same Spirit, in order to
the utterance of the words of God, employ the pious
affections of the saints, as well as the wicked and hypo-
critical thoughts of his most detestable adversaries ?
8. When a man tells us that if, in such or such a
passage, the style be that of Moses or of Luke, of
Ezekiel or of John, then it cannot be that of God it
were well that he would let us know what is God's
style. One would call our attention, forsooth, to the
accent of the Holy Ghost would show us how to
recognise him by the peculiar cast of his phraseology,
by the tone of his voice; and would tell us wherein, in
the language of the Hebrews or in that of the Greeks,
his supreme individuality reveals itself!
4. It should not be forgotten, that the sovereign ac-
tion of God, in the different fields in which it is dis-
played, never excludes the employment of second
causes. On the contrary, it is in the concatenation of
their mutual bearings that he loves to make his mighty
wisdom shine forth. In the field of creation he gives
us plants by the combined employment of all the ele-
ments heat, moisture, electricity, the atmosphere,
light, the mechanical attraction of the capillary vessels,
and the manifold operations of the organs of vegetation.
In the field of providence, he accomplishes the deve-
lopment of his vastest plans by means of 'the unex-
pected concurrence of a thousand millions of human
44 HUMAN PERSONALITY HOW EMPLOYED.
wills, alternately intelligent and yielding, or ignorant
and rebellious. " Herod and Pilate, with the Gentiles
and the people of Israel" (influenced by so many di-
verse passions), " were gathered together," he tells us,
only " to do whatsoever his hand and counsel had de-
termined before to be done." Thus, too, in the field of
prophecy does he bring his predictions to their accom-
plishment. He prepares, for example, long before-
hand, a warlike prince in the mountains of Persia, and
another in those of Media ; the former of these he had
indicated by name two hundred years before ; he unites
them at the point named with ten other nations against
the empire of the Chaldeans ; he enables them to sur-
mount a thousand obstacles ; and makes them at last en-
ter the great Babylon, at the moment when the seventy
years, so long marked out for the captivity of the
Jewish people, had come to a close. In the field of his
miracles, even, he is pleased still to make use of second
causes. There he had only to say, " Let the thing be,
and it would have its being ;" but he desired, by em-
ploying inferior agents, even in that case to let us know
that it is he that gives power to the feeblest of them.
To divide the Red Sea, he not only causes the rod of
Moses to be stretched out over the deep he sends from
the east a mighty wind, which blows all night, and
makes the waters go back. To cure the man that was
.born blind, he makes clay and anoints his eyelids. In
the field of redemption, instead of converting a soul
by an immediate act of his will, he presents motives to
it, he makes it read the Gospel, he sends preachers to
it ; and thus it is that, while it is he who " gives us to
will and to do according to his good pleasure," he " be-
gets us by his own will, by the word of truth." Well,
then, why should it not be thus in the field of inspira-
tion (theopneustia) ? Wherefore, when he sends forth
his Word, should he not cause it to enter the under-
standing, the heart, and the life of his servants, as he puts
it upon their lips ? Wherefore should he not associate
their personality with what they reveal to us ? Where-
INTERMITTENT INSPIRATION UNTENABLE. 45
fore should not their sentiments, their history, their ex-
periences, form part of their inspiration (theopneustia)?
5. What may, moreover, clearly expose the error
involved in this alleged difficulty, is the extreme in-
consistency shown in the use that is made of it ? In
fact, in order to impugn the plenary inspiration of cer-
tain portions of the Scriptures, the individuality with
which they are marked is insisted on; and yet it is
admitted that other parts of the sacred books, in which
this character is equally manifest, must have been given
directly by God, even to the most minute details.
Isaiah, Daniel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the author of the
Apocalypse, have each stamped upon their prophecies
their peculiar style, features, manner in a word, their
mark; just as Luke, Mark, John, Paul, and Peter have
been able to do in their narratives, or in their letters.
There is no validity, then, in the objection. If it proved
any thing, it would prove too much.
6. What still farther strikes us in this objection, and
in the intermittent system of inspiration with which it
is associated, is its triple character of complication,
rashness, and childishness. Complication ; for it is as-
sumed that the divine action, in dictating the Scriptures,
intermitted or fell off as often as the passage falls in the
scale of difficulty, or in the scale of importance ; and
thus God is made to retire or advance successively in
the mind of the sacred writer during the course of one
and the same chapter, or one and the same passage !
Rashness ; for the majesty of the Scriptures not being
recognised, it is boldly assumed that they are of no im-
portance, and require no wisdom beyond that of man,
except in some of their parts. We add childishness ;
one is afraid, it is alleged, to attribute to God useless
miracles, as if the Holy Ghost, after having, as is ad-
mitted, dictated, word for word, one part of the Scrip-
tures, must find less trouble in doing nothing more
elsewhere than aiding the sacred author by enlightening
him, or leaving him to write by himself under mere su-
perintendence !
46 GOD'S NOT A PARTIAL AUTHORSHIP.
7. But this is by no means all. What most of all
makes us protest against a theory according to which
the Scriptures are classed into the inspired, the half-
inspired, and the uninspired (as if this sorry doctrine
behoved to flow from the individuality stamped upon
them), is its direct opposition to the Scriptures. One
part of the Bible is from man (people venture to say),
and the other part is from God. And yet, mark what
its own language on the subject is. It protests that
" ALL Scripture is given by inspiration of God." It
points to no exception. What right, then, can we have
to make any, when itself admits none ? Just because
people tell us, if there be in the Scriptures a certain
number of passages which could not have been written
except under plenary inspiration, there are others for
which it would have been enough for the author to
have received some eminent gifts, and others still which
might have been composed even by a very ordinary
person ! Be it so ; but how does this bear upon the
question ? When you have been told who the author
of a book is, you know that all that is in that book is
from him the easy and the difficult, the important and
the unimportant. If, then, the whole Bible " is given
by inspiration of God," of what consequence is it to the
question that there are passages, in your eyes, more im-
portant or more difficult than others ? The least among
the companions of Jesus might no doubt have given us
that 5th verse of the llth chapter of St John, " Now
Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus ; " as
the most petty schoolmaster also might have composed
that first line of Athalie, " Into his temple, lo ! I
come, Jehovah to adore." But were we told that the
great Racine employed some village schoolmaster to
write out his drama, at his dictation, should we not.
continue, nevertheless, still to attribute to him all its
parts its first line, the notation of the scenes, the names
of the dramatis personce, the indications of their exits
and their entrances, as well as the most sublime strophes
of his choruses ? If, then, God himself declares to us
INSPIRATION NOT EXCITATION. 47
his having dictated the whole Scriptures, who shall
dare to say that that 5th verse of the llth chapter of
St John is less from God than the sublime words with
which the Gospel begins, and which describe to us the
eternal Word ? Inspiration, no doubt, may be percep-
tible in certain passages more clearly than in others ;
but it is not, on -that account, less real in the one case
than in the other.
In a word, were there some parts of the Bible without
inspiration, no longer could it be truly said that the
whole Bible is divinely inspired. No longer would it
be throughout the Word of God. It would have de-
ceived us.
8. Here it is of special importance to remark, that
this fatal system of a gradual, imperfect, and intermit-
tent inspiration, has its origin in that misapprehension
to which we have more than once had occasion to ad-
vert. It is because people have almost always wished
to view inspiration in the man, while it ought to have
been seen only in the book. It is " ALL SCRIPTURE,"
it is all that is written, that is inspired of God. We
are not told, and we are not asked, how God did it. All
that is attested to us is that He has done it. And what
we have to believe is simply that, whatever may have
been the method he took for accomplishing it.
To this deceptive point of view, which some have
thought good to take in contemplating the fact of in-
spiration, the three following illusions may be traced :
First ; in directing their regards to inspiration in the
sacred author, people have naturally been led to figure
it to themselves as an extraordinary excitation in him,
of which he was conscious, which took him out of
himself, which animated him, after the manner of
the ancient Pythonesses, with an afflatu divino, a di-
vine fire, easily discernible ; in such sort, that wherever
his words are simple, calm, familiar, they have been
unable to see how divine inspiration could be attributed
'to him.
Next ; in contemplating inspiration in persons, peo-
6
48 ILLUSIONS DISPELLED.
pie have farther been led to attribute to it different
degrees of perfection, seeing they knew that the sacred
authors had themselves received very different measures
of illumination and personal holiness. But if you con-
template inspiration in the book, then you will imme-
diately perceive that it cannot exist there in degrees.
A word is from God, or it is not from God. If it be
from God, it is not so after two different fashions.
Whatever may have been the spiritual state of the
writer, if all he writes be divinely inspired, all his words
are from God. And (mark well) it is according to this
principle that no Christian will hesitate, any more than
Jesus Christ has done, to rank the scriptures of Solomon
with those of Moses, any more than those of Mark or
of Matthew with those of the disciple whom Jesus
loved nay, with the words of the Son of God himself.
They are all from God.
Finally ; by a third illusion, from contemplating in-
spiration in the men who wrote the Scriptures, not in
the Scriptures which they wrote, people have been na-
turally led to deem it absurd that God should reveal
miraculously to any one what that person knew already.
They would, on this ground, deny the inspiration of those
passages in which the sacred writers simply tell what
they had seen, or simply state opinions, such as any
man of plain good sense might express without being
inspired. But it will be quite otherwise the moment
inspiration is viewed, not as in the writer^ but as in that
which is written. Then it will be seen that all has been
traced under God's guidance both the things which the
writer knew already and those of which he knew no-
thing. Who is not sensible, to give an example, that
the case in which 1 should dictate to a student a book
on geometry, altogether differs from that in which, after
having instructed him more or less perfectly in that
science, I should employ him to compose a book on it
himself under my auspices? In the latter work, it is
true, he would require my intervention only in the
difficult propositions; but then, who would think oi
DIFFERENT STYLES ONE GOD. 49
saying the book was mine ? In the former case, on
the contrary, all parts of the book, easy and difficult
alike, from the quadrature of the transcendental curves
to the theory of the straight line or of the triangle,
would be mine. Well, then, so is it with the Bible.
It is not, as some will have it, a book which God em-
ployed men, whom he had previously enlightened, to
write under his auspices. No it is a book which he
dictated to them ; it is the word of God j the Spirit of
the Lord spake by its authors, and his words were upon
their tongues.
9. That the style of Moses, Ezekiel, David, St Luke,
and St John, may be at the same time God's style, is
what a child might tell us.
Let us suppose that some modern French author had
thought good, at the commencement of the present cen-
tury, to aim at popularity by borrowing for a time the
style, we shall say, of Chateaubriand ; might it not then
be said with equal truth, but in two different senses,
that the style was the author's and yet the style too
of Chateaubriand ? And if, to save the French from
some terrible catastrophe by bringing them back to the
Gospel, God should condescend to .employ certain
prophets among them, by the mouths of whom he should
proclaim his message, would not these men have to
preach in French ? What, then, would be their style,
and what would you require in it, in order to its being
recognised as that of God ? If such were his pleasure,
one of these prophets might speak like Fenelon, an-
other like Bonaparte ; in which case there is no doubt
that it would be, in one sense, the curt, barking, jerking
style of the great captain ; also, and in the same sense,
the sustained and varied flow of the priest of Cambray's
rounded eloquence ; while in another, and a higher and
truer sense, it would, in both these mouths, be the style
of God, the manner of God, the word of God. No
doubt, on every occasion on which he has revealed him-
self, God might have caused an awful voice to resound
from heaven, as of old from the top of Sinai, or on the
50 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM MUSIC.
banks of the Jordan. 1 His messengers, at least, might
have been only angels of light. But even then what
languages would these angels have spoken ? Evidently
those of the earth ! And if he behoved on this earth
to substitute for the syntax of heaven and the vocabu-
lary of the archangels, the words and the constructions
of the Hebrews or the Greeks, why not equally have
borrowed their manners, style, and personality ?
10. This there is no doubt that he did, but not so as
that any thing was left to chance. " Known unto him are
all his works from the beginning of the world ; " 2 and
just as, year after year, he causes the tree to put forth
its leaves as well for the season when they respire the
atmospheric elements, and, co-operating with the pro-
cess at the roots, can safely draw nourishment from
their juices, as for that in which the caterpillars that
are to spin their silk on its branches are hatched and
feed upon them ; just as he prepared a gourd for the
very place and the very night on which Jonah was
to come and seat himself to the east of Nineveh, and
when the next morning dawned, a gnawing worm
when the gourd was to be withered; so, too, when
he would proceed to the most important of his doings,
and cause that Word to be written which is to outlast
the heavens and the earth, the Lord God could prepare
long beforehand each of those prophets, for the mo-
ment and for the testimony to which he had fore-
ordained them from eternity. He chose them, in suc-
cession, for their several duties, from among all men
born of women ; and, with respect to them, fulfilled in
its perfection that saying, " Send, O Lord, by the hand
thou shouldst send. " s
As a skilful musician, when he would execute a long
score by himself, takes up by turns the funereal flute,
the shepherd's pipe, the merry fife, or the trumpet that
summons to battle; so did Almighty God, when he
?vould make us hear his eternal word, choose out from
1 'Exod. six.; John xii. 29. 2 Acts xv. 18. a Exod. iv. 13.
ORGANIST AT FREIBURG. 51
of old the instruments which it seemed fit to him to
inspire with the hreath of his spirit. " He chose them
before the foundation of the world, and separated them
from their mother's womb." x
Has the reader ever paid a visit to the astonishing
o'rganist, who so charmingly elicits the tourist's tears
in the Cathedral at Freiburg, as he touches one after
another his wondrous keys, and greets your ear- by
turns with the march of warriors on the river- side, the
voice of prayer sent up from the lake during the fury
of the storm, or of thanksgiving when it is hushed to
rest ? All your senses are electrified, for you seem to
have seen all, and to have heard all. Well, then, it was
thus that the Lord God, mighty in harmony, applied,
as it were, the finger of his Spirit to the stops which he
had chosen for the hour of his purpose, and for the
unity of his celestial hymn. He had from eternity
before him all the human stops which he required ; his
Creator's eye embraces at a glance this range of keys
stretching over threescore centuries; and when he would
make known to our fallen world the everlasting counsel
of his redemption, and the coming of the Son of God,
he put his left hand on Enoch, the seventh man from
Adam, 2 and his right on John, the humble and sub-
lime prisoner of Patmos. The celestial anthem, seven
hundred years before the flood, began with these words,
" Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his
saints, to execute judgment upon all;" but already, in
the mind of God, and in the eternal harmony of his
work, the voice of John had answered to that of Enoch,
and closed the hymn, three thousand years after him,
with these words, " Behold, he cometh with clouds, and
every eye shall see iiim, and they also which pierced
him! Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen!"
And during this hymn of thirty centuries, the Spirit of
God never ceased to breathe in all his messengers ; the
angels, an apostle tells us, desired to look into its won-
1 Gal. i. 15; Epn. i. 4. Jade 14.
52 VARIETIES OF STYLE UNITY OF PLAN.
drous depths. 1 God's elect were moved, and life
eternal came down into the souls of men.
Between Enoch and St John, listen to Jeremiah,
twenty-four centuries after the one, and seven hundred
years before the other, " Before I formed thee in the
belly," saith the Lord, " I knew thee ; and before thou
earnest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and 1
ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." 2 In vain did
this alarmed man exclaim, " Ah, Lord God ! behold,
I cannot speak : for I am a child." The Lord answers
him, " Say not, I am a child : for tbou shalt speak
whatsoever I command thee ;" and the Lord put forth
his hand and touched his mouth, " Behold," said he, " I
have put my words in thy mouth."
Between Enoch and Jeremiah, listen to Moses. He,
too, struggles on Mount Horeb against the call of the
Lord, " Alas, my Lord, I am not eloquent ; send,
I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send."
But the anger of the Lord is kindled against Moses.
" Who hath made man's mouth ?" he says to him.
" Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and
will teach thee what thou shalt say. " 3
Between Jeremiah and John, listen to Paul of Tarsus,
" When it pleased God, who separated me from my
mother's womb, to reveal his Son in me, he called me by
his grace, that I might preach him among the heathen."*
You see, then, it was sometimes the artless and sub-
lime simplicity of John; sometimes the impassioned,
elliptical, rousing, and logical energy of Paul ; some-
times the fervour and solemnity of Peter ; it was Isaiah's
magnificent, and David's lyrical poetry; it was the
simple and majestic narratives of Moses, or the senten-
tious and royal wisdom of Solomon : yes, it was all this ;
it was Peter, it was Isaiah, it was Matthew, it was
John, it was Moses ; yet it was God.
"Are not all these which speak Galileans?" the
people exclaimed on the day of Pentecost ; yes, they
1 1 Peter i. 12. * Jerem. i. 5-7.
s Exod. iv. 10, &c. &c. Gal. i. 15, 16
DIVINE CHARM OF THE SCRIPTURES. 53
are so ; but the message that is on their lips comes from
another country it is from heaven. Listen to it ; for
tongues of fire have descended on their heads, and it is
God that speaks to you by their mouths.
11. Finally, we would fain that people should under-
stand that this human individuality to which our atten-
tion is directed in the Scriptures, far from leaving any
stain there, or from being an infirmity there, stamps
upon them, on the contrary, a divine beauty, and power-
fully reveals to us their inspiration.
Yes, we have said that it is God who speaks to us
there, but it is also man ; it is man, but it is also God.
Admirable "Word of God ! it has been made man in its
own way, as the eternal Word was ! Yes, God has
made it also come down to us full of grace and truth,
like unto our words in all things, yet without error and
sin ! Admirable Word, divine Word, yet withal full
of humanity, much- to-be-loved Word of my God ! Yes,
in order to our understanding it, it had of necessity to
be put upon mortal lips, that it might relate human
things ; and, in order to attract our regard, behoved to
invest itself with our modes of thinking, and with all
the emotions of our voice ; for God well knew whereof
we are made. But we have recognised it as the Word
of the Lord, mighty, eificacious, sharper than a two-
edged sword ; and the simplest among us, on hearing
it, may say like Cleopas and his friend, " Did not our
hearts burn within us while it spoke to us ? "
With what a mighty charm do the Scriptures, by
this abundance of humanity, and by all this personality
with which their divinity is invested, remind us that
the Lord of our souls, whose touching voice they are,
does himself bear a human heart on the throne of God,
although seated on the highest place, where the angels
serve him and adore him for ever! It is thus, also,
that they present to us not only that double character
of variety and unity which already embellishes all the
other works of God, as Creator of the heavens and. the
earth; but. further, that mingling of familiarity and
54 MATCHLESS PERFECTION OF THE WORD.
authority, of sympathy and grandeur, of practical de-
tails and mysterious majesty, of humanity and divinity,
which is recognisable in all the dispensations of the
same God, as Redeemer and Shepherd of his Church.
It is thus, then, that the Father of mercies, while
speaking in his prophets, behoved not only to employ
their manner as well as their voice, and their style as
well as their pen ; but, further, often to put in opera-
tion their whole faculties of thought and feeling. Some-
times, in order to show us his divine sympathy there,
he has deemed it fitting to associate their own recollec-
tions, their human convictions, their personal experi-
ences, and their pious emotions, with the words he dic-
tated to them ; sometimes, in order to remind us of his
sovereign intervention, he has preferred dispensing with
this unessential concurrence of their recollections, affec-
tions, and understanding.
Such did the Word of God behove to be.
Like Immanuel, full of grace and truth ; at once in
the bosom of God and in the heart of man ; mighty
and sympathizing ; heavenly and of the earth ; sublime
and lowly; awful and familiar; God and man! Ac-
cordingly it bears no resemblance to the God of the Ra-
tionalists. They, after having, like the disciples of
Epicurus, banished the Divinity far from man into a
third heaven, would have had the Bible also to have
kept itself there. " Philosophy employs the language
of the gods," says the too famous Strauss of Ludwigsburg,
" while religion makes use of the language of men." No
doubt she does so ; she has recourse to no other ; she
leaves to the philosophers and to the gods of this world
their empyrean and their language.
Studied under this aspect, considered in this charac-
ter, the Word of God stands forth without its like ; it
presents attractions quite unequalled ; it offers to men
of all times, all places, and all conditions, beauties ever
fresh ; a charm that never grows old, that always sa-
tisfies, never palls. With it, what we find with respect
to human books is reversed ; for it pleases and fascinates,
THE BIBLE AND THE KORAN. 55
extends and rises in your regard the more assiduously
you read it. It seems as if the hook, the more it is
studied and studied over again, grows and enlarges it-
self, and that some kind unseen heing comes daily to
stitch in some fresh leaves. And thus it is that the
souls, alike of the learned and the simple, who have
long nourished themselves on it, keep hanging upon it
as the people hung of old on the lips of Jesus Christ. 1
They all think it incomparable now powerful as the
sound of mighty waters ; now soft and gentle, like the
voice of the spouse to her bridegroom ; but always per-
fect, " always restoring the soul, and making wise the
simple." 2
To what book, in this respect, would you lik en it ?
Go and put beside it the discourses of Plato, or Se-
neca, or Aristotle, or Saint Simon, or Jean Jacques.
Have you read Mahomet's books ? Listen to him but
for one hour, and your ears will tingle while beaten on
by his piercing and monotonous voice. From the first
page to the last, it is still the same sound of the same
trumpet; still the same Medina horn, blown from the
top of some mosque, minaret, or war-camel ; still sybil-
line oracles, shrill and harsh, uttered in an unvarying
tone of command and threat, whether it ordain virtue
or enjoin murder ; ever one and the same voice, surly
and blustering, having no bowels, no familiarity, no
tears, no soul, no sympathy.
After trying other books, if you experience religious
longings open the Bible; listen to - it. Sometimes you
find here the songs of angels, but of angels that have
come down among the children of Adam. Here is the
deep-sounding organ of the Most High, but an organ
that serves to soothe man's heart and to rouse his con-
science, alike in shepherd's cots and in palaces; alike
in the poor man's garrets and in the tents of the desert.
The Bible, in fact, has lessons for all conditions; it
brings upon the scene both the lowly and the great; it
1 Luke xix. 48 : i **H j-j, x.r.\. Pa. xix. 7.
7
56 MAJESTIC UNITY DRAMATIC CHARM.
reveals equally to both the love of God, and unveils in
both the same miseries. It addresses itself to children;
and it is often children that show us there the way to
heaven and the great things of Jehovah. It addresses
itself to shepherds and herdsmen ; and it is often shep-
herds and herdsmen who lift up their voices there, and
reveal to us the character of God. It speaks to kings
and to scribes ; and it is often kings and scribes that
teach us there man's wretchedness, humiliation, confes-
sion, and prayer. Domestic scenes, confessions of con-
science, pourings forth of prayer in secret, travels, pro-
verbs, revelations of the depths of the heart, the holy
courses pursued by a child of God, weaknesses unveiled,
falls, recoveries, inward experiences, parables, familiar
letters, theological treatises, sacred commentaries on
some ancient Scripture, national chronicles, military
annals, political statistics, descriptions of God, portraits
of angels,, celestial visions, practical counsels, rules of
life, solutions of cases of conscience, judgments of the
Lord, sacred hymns, predictions of future events, nar-
ratives of what passed during the days preceding our
creation, sublime odes, inimitable pieces of poetry; all
this is found there by turns; and all this meets our
view in most delightful variety, and presenting a whole
whose majesty, like that of a temple, is overpowering.
Thus it is, that, from its first to its last page, the Bible
behoved to combine with its majestic unity the indefin-
able charm of human -like instruction, familiar, sympa-
thetic, personal, and the charm of a drama extending
over forty centuries. In. the Bible of Desmarets, it is
said, " There are fords here for lambs, and there are
deep waters where elephants swim."
But behold, at the same time, what unity, and, lo !
what innumerable and profound harmonies in this im-
mense variety! Under all forms it is still the same
truth; ever man lost, and God the Saviour; ever man
with his posterity coming forth out of Eden and losing
the tree of life, and the second Adam with his people
re-entering paradise, and regaining possession of thf
THE BIBLE CANNOT BE FROM MAN. 57
tree of life ; ever the same cry uttered in tones innu-
merable, " O heart of man, return to thy God, for he
pardoneth! We are in the gulf of perdition; let us
come out of it ; a Saviour hath gone down into it
He bestows holiness as he bestows life."
" Is it possible that a book at once so sublime and so
simple can be the work of man?" was asked of the
philosophers of the last century by one who was him-
self too celebrated a philosopher. And all its pages
have replied, No it is impossible; for every where, tra-
versing so many ages, and whichever it be of the God-
employed writers that holds the pen, king or shepherd,
scribe or fisherman, priest or publican, you every where
perceive that one same Author, at a thousand years' in-
terval, and that one same eternal Spirit, has conceived
and dictated all ; every where, at Babylon as at Horeb,
at Jerusalem as at Athens, at Rome as at Patmos, you
will find described the same God, the same world, the
same men, the same angels, the same future, the same
heaven : every where, .whether it be a poet or a his-
torian that addresses you, whether it be in the plains of
the desert in the age of Pharaoh, or in the prisons of
the capitol in the days of the Caesars every where in
the world the same ruin; in man the same impotency;
in the angels the same elevation, the same innocence,
the same charity; in heaven the same purity, the same
happiness, the same meeting together of truth and
mercy, the same mutual embracing of righteousness and
peace; the same counsels of a God who blotteth out ini-
quity, and who, nevertheless, doth not clear the guilty.
We conclude, therefore, that the abundance of hu-
manity to be found in the Scriptures, far from compro-
mising their divine inspiration, is only one farther mark
of their divinity.
58 SCRIPTURAL PROOF.
CHAPTER II.
SCRIPTURAL PROOF OP THE DIVINE INSPIRATION.
LET us open the Scriptures. "What do they say of their
inspiration ?
SECTION I.
ALT, SCRIPTURE IS DIVINELY INSPIRED.
We shall commence by reproducing here that oft-
repeated passage, 2 Tim. iii. 16, "All Scripture is
given by inspiration of God;" 1 that is to say, all parts of
it are given by the Spirit or by the breath of God.
This statement admits of no exception and of no re-
striction. Here there is no exception ; it is ALL SCRIP-
TURE ; it is all that is written (vaaa y%a,<pn) ; meaning
thereby the thoughts after they have received the stamp
of language. No restriction; all Scripture is in such
"wise a work of God, that it is represented to us as
uttered by the divine breathing, just as human speech
is uttered by the breathing of a man's mouth. The
prophet is the mouth of the Lord.
The purport of this declaration of St Paul remains
the same in both the constructions that may be put
upon his words, whether we place, as our versions do,
the affirmation of the phrase on the word QeoKvevffros
(divinely inspired"), and suppose the verb to be under-
i See further upon this passage, our Chap. III. question 27.
SCRIPTURAL MEANING OF PROPHECY, ETC. 59
stood (all Scripture is divinely inspired, profitable . . .);
or, making the verb apply to the words that follow, we
understand Otoirvevoros (divinely inspired) only as a
determinative adjective (all Scripture divinely inspired
of God, is profitable . . .). rThis last construction would
even give more force than the first to the apostle's de-
claration. For then, as his statement would necessarily
relate to the whole Scripture of the holy Letters (TO.
isga yga/A/Aara), of which he had been speaking, would
assume, as an admitted and incontestable principle, that-
the simple mention of the holy Letters implies of itself
that Scriptures inspired by God are meant.
Nevertheless it will be proper to give a farther ex-
pression of this same truth, by some other declaration
of our holy books.
SECTION IT.
ALL THE PROPHETIC UTTERANCES A^5 GIVEN BY GOD.
St Peter in his second epistle, at the close of the first
chapter^ thus expresses himself : " Knowing this first,
that no Scripture is of any private interpretation. For
the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man ;
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost." Note on this passage :
1. That it relates to written revelations (
2. That never (ou cror?) did any of these come through
the impulsion or the government of a will of man;
3. That it was as urged or moved ly the Holy Ghost
that those holy men wrote and spoke ;
4. Finally, that their writings are called by the name
of prophecy.
It will be proper then, before we proceed farther, to
have the scriptural meaning of these words prophecy,
prophesy, prophet (^pj), precisely determined ; because
it is indispensable for the investigation with which we
60 WHAT IS A PROPHET ?
are occupied, that this be known, and because the know-
ledge of it will throw much light on the whole ques-
tion.
Various and often very inaccurate meanings have
been given to the biblical tejrin prophet ; but an, atten-
tive examination, of the passages in which it is em-
ployed, will soon, convince us that it constantly desig-
nates, in the Scriptures, " a man whose mouth utters
the words of God."
Among the Greeks, this name was at first given only
to the interpreter and the organ of the vaticinations
pronounced in. the temples (ifjjysjrj^g evSsuv pavTsicav).
This sense of the word is fully explained by a passage
in the Timseus of Plato. 1 The most celebrated prophets
of pagan antiquity were those of Delphos. They con-
ducted the Pythoness to the tripod, and were charged
with the interpretation of the oracles of the god, or the
putting of them into writing. And it was only after-
wards, by an extension of this its first meaning, that
the name of prophet was given among the Greeks to
poets, who, commencing their songs with an invocation
of Apollo and the Muses, were deemed to give utterance
to the language of the gods, and to speak under their
inspiration.
A prophet, in the Bible, is a man, then, in whose
mouth God puts the words which he wishes to be heard
upon earth ; and it was farther by allusion to the ful-
ness of this meaning that God said to Moses, 2 that
Aaron should be his prophet unto Pharaoh, according
as he had told him (at chap. iv. ver. 16) : " He shall be
to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him
instead of God."
Mark, in Scripture, how the prophets testify of the
Spirit that makes them speak, and of the wholly divine
authority of their words : you will ever find in their
language one uniform definition of their office, and of
their inspiration. They speak ; it is, no doubt, their
' Tom. IX. ed. Biponfc., p. 392. Exod. vii. 1.
HOW DID THE WORD COME P 61
voice that makes itself heard ; it is their person that is
agitated; it is, no doubt, their soul also that often is
moved ; but their words are not only theirs ; they are,
at the same time, the words of Jehovah.
" The mouth of the Lord hath spoken ;" " the Lord
hath spoken," they say unceasingly. 1 " I will open my
mouth in the midst of them," saith the Lord to his
servant Ezekiel. "The Spirit of the Lord spake by
me, and his word was in my tongue," said the royal
psalmist. 2 "Hear the word of the Lord!" It is thus
that the prophets announce what they are about to
say. 8 " Then was the word of the Lord upon me," is
what they often say. " The word of God came unto
Shemaiah ;" " the word of God came to Nathan;"
" the word of God came unto John in the wilderness ;" 4
" the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord ;" 6
" the burden of the word of the Lord by Malachi ;" fl
" the word of the Lord that came unto Hosea ;" 7
" In the second year of Darius, came the word of the
Lord by Haggai, the prophet." 8
This word came down upon the men of God when
it pleased, and often in the most unlooked-for manner.
It is thus that God, when he sent Moses, said to
him, " I will be with thy mouth;" 9 and that, when he
made Balaam speak, "he put a word in Balaam's
mouth." 10 The apostles, too, quoting a passage from
David in their prayer, express themselves in these
words : " Thou, Lord, hast said by the mouth of thy
servant David." u And St Peter, addressing the mul-
titude of the disciples : " Men and brethren;, this scrip-
ture must needs have been fulfilled, which the HOLT
Micah iv. 4; Jer. ix. 12,xiii. 15, xxx. 4, 1. 1, li. 12; Isa. viii. 11
Amos iii. 1; Exod. iv. 30; Deut. xviii. 21, 22; Josh. xxiv. 2.
a 2 Sam. xxiii. 1, 2. 8 Isa. xxviii. 14; Jer. xix. 3, x. 1, xvii. 20.
4 1 Kings xii. 22; 1 Chron. xyii. 3; Luke iii. 2.
5 Jer. xi. 1, vii. 1, xviii. 1, xxi. 1, xxvi. 1, xxvii. 1, xxx. 1 ; and in
many other places. See Ezek. i. 3; Jer. i. 1,2, 9, 14; Ezek. in.
4,10,11; Hos.i. 1,2, &c.
Mai. i. 1. ? Hos. i. 1. 8 Hag. i. 1.
9 Exod. iv. 12, 15. 10 i<]9*Xt* ( ') ; Num. xxiii. 5.
Acts iv. 25.
62 PROPHETS FALSE PROPHETS.
GHOST, BY THE MOUTH OP DAVID, spake before concern-
ing Judas." x The same apostle also, in the holy place,
under Solomon's porch, cried to the people of Jerusalem,
" But those things which God before HAD SHOWED BY
THE MOUTH OP ALL HIS PROPHETS, that Christ should
suffer, he hath so fulfilled." 2
In the view of the apostles, then, David in his
psalms, and all the prophets in their writings, whatever
might be the pious emotions of their souls, were only
the mouth of the Holy Ghost. It was David WHO SPOKE;
it was the prophets WHO SHOWED ; but it was also God
THAT SPAKE BY THE MOUTH of David, his servant; it
was God WHO SHOWED BY THE MOUTH of all his pro-
phets. (Acts i. 16, iii. 18,21, iv. 25.)
And, yet again, let the reader be so good as carefully
to examine, as it stands in the Greek, that expression
which recurs so often in the Gospel, and which is so
conclusive, " That it might be fulfilled which was
spoken BY THE PROPHET, (and even) which was spoken
OF THE LORD BY THE PROPHET, (AIA
and even, TIIO rov Kug/ou AIA rot/ s
sayng. 8 .....
It is in a quite analogous sense that holy scripture
gives the name of prophets and of false prophets to im-
postors, who lied among the Gentiles, in the temples of
the false gods, whether they were only common cheats,
falsely pretending to visions from God, or whether they
were really the mouth or an occult power, of a malevo-
lent angel, of a spirit of Python.*
And it is, farther, in the same sense that St Paul, in
quoting a verse of Epimenides, a poet, priest, and
soothsayer among the Cretans, called him ''one of their
prophets;" because all the Greeks consulted him as an
oracle; because Nicias was sent into Crete by the Athen-
i Acts i. 16. 2 Acts. iii. 18.
a Matt. i. 22, ii. 5, 15, 23, xiii. 35, xxi. 4. xxvii. 9, iv. 14, viii. 17,
xii. 17.
4 Acts xiii. 6; Jer. xxix. 1-8; 2 Kings xviii. 19. The LXX. often
render K"O3 by ^vSa^af^-ms. (Jer. vi. 13, xxvi. 7, 8, 11, 16, xxix
I, 8; Zech. x.ii. 2).
THREE KINDS OP PROPHESYING. 63
ians to fetch, him to purify their city; and hecause
Aristotle, Strabo, 1 Suidas, 2 and Diogenes Laertius, 8 tell
us that he undertook to foretell the future, and to dis-
cover things unknown.
From all these quotations, accordingly, it remains
established, that in the language of the Scriptures the
prophecies' are " the words of God put into the mouth
of man."
Accordingly, it is by a manifest abuse also, that in
common language people seem to understand no more
by that word than a miraculous prediction. The pro-
phecies could reveal the past as well as the future ; they
denounced God's judgments ; they interpreted . his
Word ; they sang his praises ; they consoled his people;
they exhorted souls to holiness ; they testified of Jesus
Christ.
And as " no prophecy came ly the will of man,"* a
prophet, as we have already intimated, was such only
at intervals, " and as the Spirit gave him utterance."
(Acts ii. 4.)
A man prophesied sometimes without foreseeing it,
sometimes too without knowing it, and sometimes even
without desiring it.
1 have said, without foreseeing it ;' and often at the
very moment when he could least expect it. Such was
the old prophet of Bethel. (1 Kings xiii. 20.) I have
said, without knowing it; such was Caiaphas. (John
xi. 51.) Finally, I have said, without desiring it; such
was Balaam, when, wishing three times to curse Israel,
he could not, three successive times, make his mouth
utter any words but those of benediction. (Numb.
xxiii. xxiv.)
We shall give other examples to complete the demon-
stration of what a prophecy generally is, and thus to
arrive at a fuller comprehension of the extent of the
action of God in what St Peter calls written profhecy
Georg. lib. x. 2 In voce E>iv.
Epimen. 4 2 Pet. i. 21.
64 FACTS AND PRINCIPLES.
We read in the llth of Numbers (25th to the 29th
verses), that, as soon as the Lord made the Spirit to
rest upon the seventy elders, " they prophesied ; " hut
(it is added) " they did not cease." The Spirit, then,
came upon them at an unexpected moment ; and after
he had thus " spoken by them," and his word " had
been upon their tongue," (2 Sam. xxiii. 2), they pre-
served nothing more of this miraculous gift, and were
prophets only for a day.
We read in the First Book of Samuel (x. 11), with
what unforeseen power the Spirit of the Lord seized
young king Saul at the moment when, as he sought for
his father's she-asses, he met a company of prophets who
came down from the holy place. " What is this that is
come to the son of Kish," said they one to another; "Is
Saul also among the prophets ? "
We read at the 19th chapter, something still more
striking. Saul sends to Kamah men who were to take
David ; but no sooner did they meet Samuel and the
company of prophets over whom he was set, than the
Spirit of the Lord came upon these men of war, and
" they also prophesied." Saul sends others, and " they
also prophesy." Saul at last goes thither himself, and
" he also prophesied all that day and all that night be-
fore Samuel." " The Spirit of God," we are told, " WAS
UPON HIM."
But it is particularly by an attentive study of the 1 2th
and 14th chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians,
that one obtains an exact knowledge of what the action
of God, and the part assigned to man severally, were in
prophecy.
The apostle there gives the Church of Corinth the
rules that were to be followed in the use of this mira-
culous gift. His counsels will be found to throw a deal
of light on this important subject. One will then re-
cognise at once the following facts and principles :
1. The Holy Ghost at that time conferred upon the
faithful, for the common advantage, a great variety of
gifts (xii. 810) ; to one that of miracles ; to another
NATURE OF THE PROPHETIC GIFTS. 66
that of healing ; to another, discerning of spirits ; to
another, divers kinds of tongues, which the man him-
self did not understand when he spoke them; to another,
the interpretation of tongues ; to another, in fine, pro-
phecy that is, uttering with his own tongue words
dictated by God.
2. One and the selfsame Spirit divided severally as
he would these different miraculous powers. 1
3. These gifts were a just subject of Christian desire
and ambition. (<jXoSrg, xiv. 1, 39.) But the one that
was to be regarded as the most desirable of all, was that
of prophesying; for one could speak an unknown
tongue without edifying any body, and that miracle
was "useful rather to the unbelievers than to belie-
vers ;" whereas " he that prophesied spoke unto men
to edification, and exhortation, and comfort." (1 Cor.
xiv. 1-3.)
4. That prophecy that is to say, those words that fell
miraculously on the lips that the Holy Ghost had
chosen for such an office that prophecy assumed very
different forms. Sometimes the Spirit gave a psalm,
sometimes a doctrine, sometimes a revelation ; some-
times, too, it was a miraculous interpretation of that
which others had miraculously expressed in strange
tongues. 2
5. In those prophecies there was evidently a work of
God and a work of man. They were the words of the
Holy Ghost ; but they were also the words of the pro-
phet. It was God that spoke, but in men, by men, for
men ; and there you would have found, as on other oc-
casions, the sound of their voice perhaps also the
habitual peculiarities of their style perhaps, moreover,
allusions to their own experience, to their position at the
time, to their individuality.
6. These miraculous facts continued in the primitive
Church throughout the long career of the apostles. St
Paul, who wrote his letter to the Corinthians twenty
11. See also Eph. iv. 7 ; and Acts xix. 1 to 6.
* VPV. 26 to 31; and 1 Sam. x. 6; xviii. 10.
66 THE SCRIPTURES WRITTEN PROPHECIES.
years after the death of Jesus Christ, speaks of them as
a common and habitual order of things, for some time
existing among them, and which ought still to continue.
7. The prophets, although they were the mouth of
God to make his words heard, were not, however, abso-
lutely passive while engaged in prophesying.
"The spirits of the prophets," says St Paul, "are
subject to the prophets" (1 Cor. xiv. 32) ; that is to
say, that the men of God, while his prophetic word was
on their lips, could nevertheless check its escape by the
repressive action of their own wills ; nearly as a man sus-
pends, when he wishes to do so, the almost involuntary
course of his respiration. Thus, for example, if any
revelation came upon one of those that were sitting,
the first that spoke had then ".to hold his peace, sit
down, and let him speak."
Let us now apply these principles and these facts
to the prophecy of Scripture (rfl <!rgo<pr)rsiq /gapJjg), and
to the passage of St Peter, for the explanation of which
we have adduced them.
"'No prophecy of the Scripture," says he "is of any
private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old
time by a will of man : but holy men of God spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Pet. i. 21.)
Here, then, we have the plenary and entire inspira-
tion of the Scriptures clearly established by the apostle ;
here we have the SCRIPTURE assimilated to those pro-
phecies which we have just defined. It " came not by
a will of man ;" it is entirely dictated by the Holy Ghost ;
it gives us the very words of God ; it is entirely (evdiog
and QfoKvsverog) given by the breath of God.
Who would dare then, after such declarations, to
maintain, that in the Scriptures the expressions are not
inspired ? They are WRITTEN PROPHECIES (cratfa Tgopjj-
rsia 7fa%). One sole difficulty, accordingly, is all
that can any longer be opposed to our conclusion. The
testimony and the reasoning on which it rests, are so
clearly valid, that one can elude them only by this ob-
jection. We agree, it will be said, that written prophecy
ALL OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURE PROPHETIC. 6?
(vgo<pr,reia, yguffig) has, without contradiction, heen
composed by that power of the Holy Ghost which was
put forth in the prophets ; hut the rest of the book, the
Epistles, the Gospels, and the Acts, the Proverbs, the
Books of Kings, and so many other purely historical
writings, are not entitled to be put in the same rank.
Here, then, let us pause ; and, before replying, see
clearly the extent of our argument.
It ought already to he fully acknowledged, that all that
part of the Scriptures at least called PROPHECY, what-
ever it be, has been completely dictated by God; so that the
words as well as the thoughts "have been given by him.
But who now will permit us to establish a distinction
between any one of the books of the Bible, and all the
other books ? Is not all given by prophecy ? Certainly
all has equally God's warrant ; this is what we proceed
to prove.
SECTION III.
ALL THE SCRIPTURES OP THE OLD TESTAMENT ARE PROPHETIC.
And, first of all, all the Scriptures are without dis-
tinction called THE WORD OF. GOD. This title is suffi-
cient of itself to demonstrate to us, that if Isaiah began
his prophecies by inviting the heavens and the earth to
give ear because the Lord had spoken, 1 the same sum-
mons ought to come forth for us from all the books of
the Bible, for they are all called " The Word of God."
" Hear, O heavens, and give ear, earth ; for the Lord
nath spoken !"
Nowhere shall we find a single passage that permits
us to detach one single part of it as less divine than all
the rest. When we say that this whole book is the
Word of God, do we not attest that the very phrases of
which it is composed have been given by him ?
i Isa. i. 2.
68 ALL PARTS OF THE SCRIPTURES INSPIRED.
But the whole Bible is not only called " The Word of
God" (6 Xdyog rou ECU) ; it is called, without distinc-
tion, THE ORACLES OF GOD (ra Xdy/a rou sou). 1 Who
knows not what oracles were held to be in the ideas of
men in ancient times ? Was there a word that could
more absolutely express a verbal and complete inspira-
tion ? And as if this term, which St Paul employs, were
not sufficient, we farther hear Stephen, filled with the
Holy Ghost, call them the LIVING ORACLES (Xo'y
i/ra) ; " Moses," he says, " received the lively ora-
cles, to give them unto us." (Acts vii. 38.)
All the Scriptures then, without exception, are a
continuous word of God ; they are his miraculous voice ;
they are his written prophecies and his lively oracles.
Which of their various parts, then, would you dare to
cut off? The apostles often distinguish two parts in
them, when they call them " Moses and the Prophets."
Jesus Christ distinguished them into three parts 2 when
he said to his apostles, " That all things must be ful-
filled which were written in Moses, and in the Prophets,
and in the Psalms, concerning me." According to this
division, then, in which our Lord speaks according to
the language of that time, the Old Testament would be
made up of these three parts,-; Moses, the Prophets, and
the Psalms ; as the New Testament is composed of the
Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles, and the Book of the
Revelation. Which, then, of these three parts of the
Old Testament, or which of these four parts of the
New, would you dare to withdraw from the /Scripture
of the prophets (v^o^rsiag ygapjjg), or from the inspired
"Word (iv$ou Xdyou ygc&p?js ^SOTTI/SUCTOU)?
Would it be Moses ? But what more holy and more
divine, in the whole Old Testament, than the writings
of that man of God ? He was in such sort a prophet
that his holy books are placed above all the rest, and
are called emphatically THE LAW. He was in such
sort a prophet, that another prophet, speaking of hia
i Rom. iii. 2. 2 Luke xxiv. 44.
ALIKE THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. 69
books alone, said, " The law of the Lord is perfect"
(Ps. xix. 7) ; " The words of the Lord are pure words,
as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven
times." (Ps. xii. 6.) He was in such sort a prophet of
God, that he is compared by himself to none but the
Son of God. " This is that Moses," it is written, " who
said to the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord
your God raise up unto you of your brethren, LIKE UNTO
ME; him shall ye hear." (Acts vii. 37.) He.was in such
sort a prophet, that he was accustomed to preface his
orders with these words : "Thus saith the Lord." He was
in such sort a prophet, that God said to him, " "Who hath
made man's mouth ? have not I, the Lord ? Now there-
fore go ; and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee
what thou shalt say." (Exod. -iv. 11.) Finally, he was
in such sort a prophet, that it is written, " And there
arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses,
whom the Lord knew face to face." (Deut. xxxiv. 10.)
What other part of the Old Testament, then, would
you exclude from the prophetic Scriptures? Shall it
be the second ? that which Jesus Christ calls The Pro-
phet^ and which comprises all the Old Testament, ex-
clusive of Moses and the Psalms, and sometimes ex-
clusive of Moses alone ? It is well worth noting, that
Jesus Christ, and the apostles, and the whole people,
habitually call by the name of prophets all the authors
of the Old Testament. They were wont to say, in order
to designate the whole Scriptures, " Moses and the pro-
phets." (Luke xxiv. 25, 27, 44; Matt. v. 17, vii. 12,
xi. 13, xxii. 40; Luke xvi. 16, 29, 31, xx. 42; Acts
i. 20, iii. 21, 22, vii. 35, 37, viii. 28, xxvi. 22, 27,
xxviii. 23; Rom. i. 2, iii. 2], x. 5, &c, &c.) Jesus
Christ called all their books The Prophets : they were
prophets. Joshua, then, was a prophet ; the authors of
the Chronicles were prophets, quite as Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, and all the rest were, down
to Malachi.
They wrote then, all of them, the prophetic Scrip-
tures (tfgoipqrefav ygaffif) ; all, the words of which St
70 SCRIPTURE PONDERED BY THOSE WHO WROTE IT.
Peter has said, " that none of them came by a will of
man ; " all, those tsg& ygapfiura, those holy letters,
which the apostle declares to be " divinely inspired." l
The Lord said of all of them as of Jeremiah, " Lo, I have
put my words in thy mouth;" 2 and as of Ezekiel,
" Son of man, go, speak unto them MY words : speak
unto them, and tell them, THUS SAITH THE LORF
Goo." 3
And that all the phrases, all the words, were sug-
gested to them by God, is demonstrated by a fact
stated to us more than once, and in the study of their
writings frequently brought under our eye, to wit that
they were charged to transmit to the Church oracles,
the meaning of which was to remain veiled to their own
minds. Daniel, for example, declares more than once,
that he was unable to seize the prophetic meaning of
the words that proceeded from his own lips, or were
traced with his hand.* The types, impressed by God
on all the events of primitive history, were not to be
recognised till many centuries after the death of the
men who were commissioned to relate to us their lead-
ing features ; and the Holy Ghost informs us that the
prophets, after having written out their sacred pages,
set themselves to study them with the most respectful
attention, as they would have done with the other
Scriptures, " searching what, or what manner of time
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST which was in them did signify,
vrhen it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ,
and the glory that should follow." 6 Behold, then, these
men of God bending over their own writings. There
they ponder the words of God and the thoughts of
God. Can this cause you any surprise, seeing that they
have written for the elect of the earth, and for the prin-
cipalities and powers of heaven, the doctrines and the
glories of the Son of God, and seeing these are things
" into which the angels desire to look ?" 6
1 2 Tim. iii. J6. 2 Jer. i. 9.
s Ezek. iii. 10, 11. * Dan. xii. 4, 8, 9, viii. 27, x. 8, 21.
* 1 Pet. i. 10, 1 1, 12. s Eph. iii. 10, 1 1.
TESTIMONY OP DAVID OF ZAC1IARIAH. ? 1
So much for Moses and for the Prophets ; but
what will you say of the Psalms ? Shall we conoictei
these less given by the spirit of prophecy than ah the
rest ? Are not the authors of the Psalras always called
prophets? ^ And if they are sometimes, like Moses,
distinguished from the other prophets, is it not evidently
in order that a place of greater eminence may be as-
signed them ? " David was a prophet," says St Peter.
(Actsii.30.) Mark what he himself says he is: "The
Spirit of the Lord SPAKE BY ME," says he, " and HIS
WORD WAS UPON MY TONGUE," (2 Sam. xxiii. 1, 2.)
." What David wrote," and even his words in detail, " he
wrote SPEAKING BY THE HOLY GHOST," said our Lord.
(Mark xii. 36.) The apostles also, quoting him (in
their prayer), take care to say, " This Scripture must
needs have been fulfilled which the Holy Ghost by the
mouth of David spake." (Acts i. 16.) " Lord, thou
art God, who by the mouth of thy servant David hast
said." (Acts iv. 25.) What do I say? These psalms
were to such a degree all dictated by the Holy Ghost,
that the Jews, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself, call
them by the name of THE LAW; 2 all their utterances had
the force of law; their smallest words were from God.
"Is it not written in your LAW?" said Jesus while
quoting them, and in quoting them even for a SINGLE
WORD (as we shall soon have occasion to show).
The whole Old Testament then is, in a scriptural
sense of the expression, a WRITTEN PROPHECY (Trgopjjra/a
ygapjjg). It is plenarily inspired therefore by God,
seeing that, according to the testimony of Zachariah,
" it is God who spake by the mouth of his holy pro-
phets, which have been since the world began ; " 8 and
1 Matt. xiii. 35; for Asaph (Ps. Ixxvhi.)
2 John x. 34. St Paul (Rom. iii. 19) calls the whole Old Testa
ment equally by the name of LAW, and more especially Isaiah, the
Proverbs, and the Psalms (which he quotes). This remark has
not escaped Chrysostom (Homil. viii.) : tvrauft* rout '
t ; and Theophylact adds, *} to. 5 'Ha-ainu.
Luke i. 70.
8
72 PROBABILITIES WEIGHED.
because, according to that of Peter, " they spoke as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost." 1
It is true that thus far our reasonings, and the tes-
timonies on which they are founded, directly relate to
the books of the Old Testament only; and it might
possibly be objected to us that as yet we have proved
nothing for the New.
We shall begin, before we reply, with asking, If it
were likely that the Lord could have designed giving
successive revelations to his people, and that, neverthe-
less, the latest and the most important of these should
be inferior to the first ? We would ask, If it be rational
to imagine that the first Testament, which contained
only " the shadows of things that were to come," could
have been dictated by God in all its contents; while the
second Testament, which sets before us the grand ob-
ject to which all those shadows relate, and which de-
scribes to us the works, the character, the person, and
the sayings even of the Son of God, was to be less
inspired than the first? We would ask, If one can
believe that the Epistles and the Gospels, which were
destined to repeal many of the ordinances of Moses
and the Prophets, could be less divine than Moses and
the Prophets ; and that the Old Testament could be
throughout an utterance of thought on the part of God,
while it was to be replaced, or at least modified and
consummated, by a book emanating partly from man
and partly from God ?
But there is no need even of our having recourse to
these powerful inductions in order to establish the pro-
phetic inspiration of the Gospel ; nay, its superiority to
Moses and the prophets.
1 2 Pet. L 21. See also Matt. i. 22, zzii. 43; Mark ziL 36.
NEW TESTAMENT CERTAINLY INSPIRED. 73
SECTION IV.
ALL THE SCBIPTtTRES OP THE NEW TESTAMENT ARE PROPHETIC.
The whole tenor of Scripture places the writers ot
the New Testament in the same rank with the prophets
of the Old; and even when it establishes any difference
between them, it is always in putting the last in date
above the first, in so far as one of God's sayings is su-
perior (not doubtless in divinity, not in dignity, but
in authority) to the saying that preceded it.
Let the reader be so good as attend to the following
passage of the apostle St Peter. It is very important,
inasmuch as it lets us see that, in the lifetime of the
apostles, the book of the New Testament was already
almost entirely formed, in order to make one whole to-
gether with that of the Old. It was twenty or thirty
years after the day of Pentecost that St Peter felt grati-
fied in referring to ALL THE EPISTLES OF PAUL, his be-
loved brother, and spoke of them as sacred writings
which, even so early as his time, formed part of the
Holy Letters (hguv yga^as-wv), and behoved to be
classed with THE OTHER SCRIPTURES (u$ xai r&g XO/TGSS,
yfap&e). . He assigns them the same rank, and de-
clares that " unlearned men can wrest them but to their
own destruction." Mark this important passage : " Our
beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom
given unto him hath written unto you ; as also IN ALL
HIS EPISTLES, speaking in them of these things; in which
are some things hard to be understood, which they that
are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the
OTHER SCRIPTURES, unto their own destruction." *
The apostle, at the second verse of the same chapter,
had already placed himself, along with the other apostles,
on the same rank, and assumed the same authority, as
the sacred writers of the Old Testament, when he said :
2 Peter iii. 15, 16.
74 NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS THEIR MISSION.
" That ye may be mindful of the words which were
spoken BEFORE by the holy PROPHETS, and of the com-
mandment OF us the APOSTLES of the Lord and Sa-
viour."
The writings of the apostles, then, were that which
those of the Old Testament were; and these being a
WRITTEN PROPHECY that is to say, something spoken
altogether by God the latter are no less so.
But we have said the Scripture goes much farther in
the rank it assigns to the writers of the New Covenant.
It teaches us to consider them as even superior to those
of the Old, whether as respects the importance of their .
mission, or the glory of the promises made to them, or
the greatness of the gifts conferred on them or, in fine,
the eminence of the rank assigned to them.
1. First, let us distinctly perceive what their mission
was, compared with that of the ancient prophets ; and
it will at once be seen, from passages bearing on this
point, that their inspiration could not be inferior to that
of their predecessors.
When Jesus sent the apostles whom he had chosen,
it is written, he said to them : " Go ye therefore, and
teach all nations ; teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you : and, lo, I AM
WITH YOU alway, even unto the end of. the world,
Amen." * " But ye shall receive power, after that the
Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses
unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in
Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." 3
" Peace be unto you : as my Father HATH SENT ME, even
SO SEND I YOU." 3
Such was their mission. They were the immediate
envoys (aToffroXo/) of the Son of God ; they went to all
nations ; they had the assurance that their Master would
be present with the testimony they were to bear to him
in the holy Scriptures. Did they require, then, less in-
spiration for their going to the ends of the earth, and
1 Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. Acts i. 8. John xx. 21.
PROMISES MADE TO THEM. 75
to make disciples of all nations, than the prophets re-
quired for going to Israel and teaching that one people,
the Jews? Had they not to promulgate all the doc-
trines, all the ordinances, all the mysteries of the king-
dom of God ? Had they not to bear " the keys of
the kingdom of heaven" in such sort, that whatsoever
they should bind or loose on earth should be bound or
loosed in heaven ? l Had not Jesus Christ expressly con-
ferred the Holy Ghost upon them for this end, that
sins might he remitted or retained with regard to those
to whom they should remit or retain them? Had he
not breathed upon them, saying, " Receive the Holy
Ghost?" Mad he not to reveal to them the wondrous
character of the Word made flesh, and of the Creator
so abased as to take upon him the form of a creature,
and even to die upon the cross ? Had they not to re-
port his inimitable words? Had they not to perform
on earth the miraculous intransmissible functions of
his representatives and of his ambassadors, as if it had
been Christ that spoke by them ? 2 Were they not
called to such a glory, " that, in the great final regene-
ration^ when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of
his glory, they also should sit upon twelve thrones,
judging the twelve tribes of Israel ? " 3 If, then, the
prophetic Spirit was necessary for the former men of
God, in order to show the Messiah under the shadows,
was it not much more necessary for them, in order to
their hringing him out into the light, and to their evi-
dently setting him forth as crucified amongst us, 4 in
such a manner that he that despiseth them despiseth
him, and he that heareth them heareth him? 5 Let one
judge by all these traits what the inspiration of the New
Testament behoved to have been, compared with that
of the Old ; and let one say whether, while the latter
was wholly and entirely prophetic, that of the New
could be any thing less.
2. But this is not all ; listen further to the promises
i Matt, xviii. 18, xvi. 19. * 2 Cor. v. 20. a Matt. xix. 28.
4 Gal. iii. i. 6 Luke x. 16;
76 THE FULLEST INSPIRATION PROMISED.
that were made to them for the performance of such a
work. No human language can express with greater
force the most absolute inspiration. These promises
were for the most part addressed to them on three great
occasions : first, when sent out for the first time to
preach the kingdom of God ; x next, when Jesus him-
self delivered public discourses on the gospel before an
immense multitude, gathered by tens of thousands
around him ; 2 third, when he uttered his last denuncia-
tion against Jerusalem and the Jewish nation. 8
" But when they deliver you up, take no thought
HOW or WHAT ye shall speak (vu$ 55 r/), for it shall
be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.
For it is not YE that speak, but the SPIRIT OP YOUR
FATHER WHICH SPEAKETH IN YOU."
" And when they bring you unto the synagogues,
and unto magistrates and powers, TAKE YE NO THOUGHT
HOW or WHAT thing ye shall answer, or WHAT ye shall
say ; for the Holy Ghost shall teach you IN THE SAME
HOUR what ye ought to say." ',' Take no thought be-
forehand what ye shall speak, NEITHER DO YE PREME-
DITATE, but WHATSOEVER shall be GIVEN you in_ that
hour, that speak ye ; for it is NOT YE THAT SPEAK, but
the Holy Ghost."
On these different occasions, the Lord assured his
disciples that the fullest Inspiration would regulate their
language in the most difficult and important moments
of their ministry. "When they should have to speak to
princes, they were to feel no disquietude; they were not
even to premeditate, they were not even to take thought
about it, because there would then be immediately given
to them by God, not only the things they were to say,
but the words also in which those things were to be ex-
pressed ; not only r/, but vug "ka\r,Govrai. (Matt. x.
19, 20.) They behoved to cast themselves entirely on
him ; it would be given them entirely ; it would be
given them by Jesus ; it would be given them in that
' Matt. x. 19, 20. * Luke xii. 12.
3 Mark xiii. 11; Luke xxi. 14, 15.
A FORTIORI PROOF. 77
same hour ; it would be given them in such, a manner,
and in such plenitude, that they should be able then to
say that it was no more they, but the Holy Ghost, the
SPIRIT OF THEIR FATHER, which spoke IN THEM ; * and
that then also it was not only an irresistible wisdom
that was given them, it was a mouth. 2
" Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate
before what ye shall answer; for I will give you a
mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries shall not
be able to gainsay or resist."
Then (as with the ancient prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel) it shall be the Holy Ghost that will speak by
them, as God spoke by his holy prophets since the
world began. 3 In one sense, indeed, it was they that
were to speak ; but it shall be the Holy Ghost who will
teach them (Luke xii. 12) in that same hour what they
are to say ; so that, in another sense, it was to be the
Holy Ghost himself that was to speak by their lips.
We ask if it were possible, in any language, to express
more absolutely the most entire inspiration, and to de-
clare with more precision, that the very words were then
vouched by God and given to the apostles ?
No doubt, in these promises there is no direct refer-
ence to the support which the apostles were to receive
as writers ; and that they bear rather on what they were
to expect, when they had to appear before priests, be-
fore governors, and before kings. But is it not evident
enough, that if the most entire inspiration were assured
to them * for passing exigencies, to shut the mouths of
some wicked men, to conjure the perils of a day, and to
subserve interests of the narrowest range , if it were
promised them, notwithstanding that the very words of
their answers should then be given to them by means of
a calm, mighty, but inexplicable operation of the Holy
Ghost, is it not evident enough that the same assistance
could not be refused to those same men, when, like the
ancient prophets, they had to continue the book of
i Matt. x. 20. * Luke xxi. 15.
a Acts iii. 21. Luke xii. 12.
78 A FORTIORI PROOF CONTINUED.
God's oracles ; and so to hand down to all succeeding
ages the laws of the kingdom of heaven, and describe
the glories of Jesus Christ and the scenes of eternity ?
Can any one suppose that the men who, before Ananias,
or Festus, or Nero, were in such sort " the mouth of the
Holy Spirit," that then it was no longer they that spoke,
but that Spirit, should, when writing the everlasting
Gospel, have returned to the condition of ordinary
beings merely enlightened, denuded of their previous in-
spiration, no longer speaking by the Holy Ghost, and
thenceforward employing only words dictated by human
wisdom, (^gX^ar; avdgtairov xat iv Sida/tro?; avdguKivTis
ffopiag Xo'yo/s) ? This is quite inadmissible.
3. See them, further, commencing their apostolic
ministry on the day of Pentecost : see what gifts they
received.
Tongues of fire descend on their heads ; they are
filled with the Holy Ghost ; they leave their upper
chamber, and a vast multitude hears them proclaim, in
fifteen different languages, the wonderful works of God ;
they speak AS THE SPIRIT GIVES THEM UTTERANCE j 1 they
speak (it is said) THE WORD OF GOD (JXaXouv rbv Xo'yov
rov Qeov.y Assuredly, the words of those foreign lan-
guages must have been then supplied to them as well as
the things, the expression as well as the thoughts, the TWJ
as well as the ri. (Matt. x. 19. ; Luke xii. 1 1.)
Now then will it be believed, that the Spirit could have
taken care to dictate all that they behoved to say, for
preachings at the corners of the streets, for words which
passed away with the sound of their, voices, and which,
after all, reached only some thousands of hearers ;
while those same men, when they came afterwards to
write for all earth's nations, and for all ages of the
Church, "the lively oracles of God," were to be deprived
of their first assistance ? Will it be believed, that after
having been more than the ancient prophets as respects
preaching in public, they were to be less than those
J Acts ii. 4. Acts iv. 3 1 .
THE APOSTLES WEBB ALL PBOPHETS. 79
prophets, and were to become ordinary men, when they
took the pen to finish the Book of the Prophets, to write
their Gospels, their Epistles, and the Book of the Revela-
tion ? The unreasonableness and inadmissibility of
such a supposition are felt at once.
4. 'But here we have to say something still more
simple and more peremptory. We would speak of the
rank that is assigned them ; and indeed, after what WP .
said of the prophets of the Old Testament, we might
even have limited ourselves to this simple fact, that the
apostles were all of them PROPHETS, and MORE THAN
PROPHETS.
Their writings, therefore, are WRITTEN PROPHECIES
(<rfopjjrs/a ygapris), as much, and even more, than those
of the Old Testament ; and hence we are led to con-
clude once more, that all Scripture in the New Testa-
ment, as well as in the Old, is inspired of God, even to
its smallest particles.
I have said that the apostles were all prophets. They
often declare this ; but, not to multiply quotations un-
necessarily, we content ourselves here with appealing to
the two following passages of the apostle St Paul.
The first is addressed to the Ephesians (iii. 4, 5) :
"Whereby," he tells them, "when ye read WHAT I
WROTE before in a few words, ye may understand my
knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages
was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is NOW
revealed unto his holy APOSTLES AND PROPHETS by the
Spirit."
One clearly sees, then, here the apostle and prophet
Paul, the apostles and prophets Matthew, John, Jude,
Peter, James, received by the Spirit the revelation of
the mystery of Christ; and wrote about it as PROPHETS.
Further, it is of the same mystery, and of the writ-
ings of the same prophets, that that same apostle speaks
in the second of the passages we have indicated, that
is, in the last chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. 1
i Rom. xvi. 25-27.
9
80 THE APOSTLES MORE THAN PROPHETS.
" Now to him that is of power to establish you ac-
cording to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ,
according to the revelation of the mystery, which was
kept secret since the world began, but now is made
manifest, and by the SCRIPTURES OF THE PROPHETS
(5/a re ygapuv <xgo<priTixuv\ according to the command-
ment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations
for the obedience of faith : to God only wise, be glory
through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen !"
Here, then, we have the authors of the New Testa-
ment again called PROPHETS; we have their writings
called PROPHETICAL WRITINGS (ygapa] TTgopjjr/xa/. the
equivalent of the </ropj7-g/a ygapjjs of St Peter). And
since we have already seen that no prophecy ever came
by the will of him that uttered it, but that it was as
moved and impelled by the Holy Ghost that holy men
of God spake ; the prophets of the New Testament
spoke therefore like those of the Old, and according to
the commandment of the everlasting God. They were
all of them prophets. 1
But we may advance a step farther; for, as we have
said, they were MORE THAN PROPHETS. Here again we
have a remark of the learned Michaelis. 2 Loose as are
his principles on the inspiration of a part of the New
Testament, this has not escaped his notice. It is clear,
according to him, looking to the context, that, in the
judgment pronounced by Jesus Christ on John Baptist
(Matt. xi. 9, 11), the terms great and little of the llth
verse, apply only to the title of prophet which precedes
them at the 9th verse ; so that Jesus Christ there de-
clares, that if John Baptist is the greatest of the prophets
if he is even more than a prophet still the least of the
prophets of the New Testament is greater than John
Baptist; that is to say, greater than the greatest of the
Old Testament prophets. 3
Besides, this superiority of the apostles and prophets
i See further Luke xi. 49; Eph. ii. 20, iii. 5, iv. 11: Gal. i. 12,
I Pet. i. 12; I Cor. xii. 28; 1 Thess. ii. 15.
8 Introd., t. i. p. 118, French edition. 3 ib., and Luke vii. 28.
THE APOSTLES PUT ABOVE THE PROPHETS. 81
of the New Testament, is more than once attested to us
in the apostolical writings.
Every where, when mention is made of the different
offices established in the Churches, the apostles are
placed above the prophets.
Take, for example, a very remarkable passage of the
1st Epistle to the Corinthians. The apostle's object is
to make known to us the gradations of excellence and
dignity among the several miraculous charges consti-
tuted by God in the primitive Church, and he expresses
himself as follows : " And God hath set some in the
Church, first APOSTLES, secondarily PROPHETS, thirdly
TEACHERS, after that miracles, then gifts of healings,
helps, governments, diversities of tongues. 1
At the fourth chapter of his Epistle to the Ephesians,
at verse 1 1 , he again puts the apostles ABOVE the pro-
phets.
At chapter ii. ver. 20, he calls the apostles, APOSTLES
and PROPHETS. And at chapter xiv. of the 1st Epistle
to the Corinthians, he places himself ABOVE the pro-
phets whom God had raised up in that Church. His
wish is, that every one of them, if he have really re-
ceived the Holy Ghost, should employ the gifts he has
received in acknowledging that the things that he
wrote unto them were the commandments of the Lord;
and so fully convinced is he that what he writes is dic-
tated by inspiration of God, that, after having dictated
ORDERS to the Churches, and concluded them with these
words, which nothing short of the highest inspiration
could sanction, It is thus I ORDAIN in all the Churches,
he goes farther, he proceeds to rank himself ABOVE THE
PROPHETS; or rather, being himself a prophet, he calls
upon the spirit of prophecy in them to acknowledge the
words of Paul as the words of the Lord ; and he ends
with these remarkable expressions : " What ? came the
word of God out from you ? If any man think
himself to be a PROPHET, or SPIRITUAL, let him acknow-
1 1 Cor. xii. 28.
82 PAUL ATTESTS HIS DIVINE AUTHORITY.
ledge that the things that I WRITE UNTO YOU are the
COMMANDMENTS OF THE LORD." i
The writings of the Apostles, then, are (like those of
the ancient prophets) the commandments of the ever-
lasting God ; they are " written prophecies" (irpopqreia
yga%), as much as the Psalms, and Moses, and the
prophets (Luke xxiv. 44) ; and all their authors then
could say with St Paul, CHRIST SPEAKS IN ME (2 Cor.
xiii. 3 ; I Thess. ii. 13) ; what I say is the word of God,
and the things I speak are taught me hy the Holy
Ghost (1 Cor. ii. 13) ; quite as David before them had
said, " The spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his
word was in my tongue." 2
Mark, besides, their own words, when they speak of
what they are. Would it be possible to declare more
clearly than they have done, that words as well as sub-
ject have been given them by God. " As for us," they
say, "we have the mind of Christ." (1 Cor. ii. 16.)
" For this cause also thank we God without ceasing.
because, when ye received THE WORD op God which ye
heard of us, ye received not the word of men, but (as it
is in truth) the WORD OF GOD." (1 Thes. ii. 13.) " He
therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who
hath also given unto us his holy Spirit." (iThes.iv. 8.)
Such then, in fine, is the word of the New Testa-
ment. It is like that of the Old, a word uttered by
prophets, and by prophets greater even than those that
preceded them ; in such sort, for example, as has been
very well remarked by Michaelis, 8 that an epistle com-
mencing with these words, " Paul, an apostle of Jesus
Christ,"* thereby gives us a higher attestation of his
divine authority and his divine inspiration, than could
have been given even by the writings of the most
illustrious prophets of the Old Testament when they
began with these words, " Thus saith the Lord" 8 "The
I Cor. xiv. 36, 37.
2 Sara. xxiii. 2.
s Introd. tome 1, p. 118, 119, &c., French edition.
* Rom. i. 1; Gal. i. 1; Cor. i. 1., &c.; 1 Pet. i. i; 2 Pet. i. 1.
Isa. Ivi. 1 ; xliii. 1, and passim.
MARK AND LUKE WERE PROPHETS. 83
vision of Isaiah" " The word that Isaiah saw" 1
" the words of Jeremiah to whom the word of
the Lord came" * " Hear the word of the Lord" or
such like analogous expressions. And if there he in the
New Testament some books where such inscriptions
are not to he found, their inspiration is no more com-
promised thereby than this or that book of the Old
Testament (the second or the ninety-fifth psalm, for
example) ; 8 which, although they have not the names of
the prophets that composed them, are not the less
quoted as divine by Jesus Christ and his apostles.
The objection has sometimes been started that Luke
and Mark were not apostles, properly so called ; and
that consequently they did not receive the same inspi-
ration as the other sacred writers of the New Testament.
True, they were not apostles ; but they were certainly
prophets, and they were even greater than the greatest
of those of the Old Testament. (Luke vii. 26, 28.)
Without insisting here on the ancient traditions,* which
say that both were of the number of the seventy disciples
whom Jesus sent at first to preach in Judea, or at least
of those one hundred and twenty on whom the tongues
of the Holy Ghost descended on the day of Pentecost ;
are such objectors not aware that the apostles had re-
ceived the power of conferring, by the imposition of
hands, miraculous gifts on all who believed, and that
they exercised this power in all the countries and all the
cities whither they directed their steps ? And since St
Luke and St Mark were, amid so many other prophets,
the fellow-workers chosen by St Paul and St Peter, is
it not clear enough that these two apostolic men must
have bestowed upon such associates the gifts which
they dispensed to so many besides who had believed ?
Do we not see Peter and John first go down to Samaria
to confer these gifts on the believers of that city ; this
1 Isa. i. 1, ii. 7, and elsewhere. 2 Jer. i. 2.
Acts iv. 25, xiii. 33; Heb. i. 5, iii. 7, 17, iv. 3, 7, v. 5.
4 Epiph., Heeres., 51 and others Orig., De recta in Deum fida
Doroth. in Synopsi. Procop. Diacon., apud Holland., 25th April.
84 PROPHETS ABOUNDED IN THE EARLY CHURCH.
followed by Peter coming to Cesarea, there to shed them
on all the Gentiles who had heard the word in the house
of the centurion Cornelius ? a Do we not see St Paul
bestow them abundantly on the. believers of Corinth, on
those of Ephesus, on those of Rome? 2 Do we not see
him, before employing his dear son Timothy as his
fellow- labourer, causing spiritual powers to descend
upon him ? 8 And is it not evident that St Peter must
have done as much for his dear son Mark, 4 as St Paul
did for his companion Luke ? 6 Silas, whom St Paul
had taken to accompany him (as he took Luke and
John, whose surname was Mark), Silas was a prophet
at Jerusalem. 6 Prophets abounded in all the primitive
churches. Many were seen to come down from Jerusa-
lem to Antioch; 7 a great many were to be found in
Corinth ; 8 Judas and Silas were prophets in Jerusalem.
Agabus was such in Judea; farther, four daughters,
still in their youth, of Philip the evangelist, were pro-
phetesses in Cesarea ; 9 and in the Church of Antioch,
there were to be seen many believers who were prophets
and doctors ; w - among others Barnabas (St Paul's first
companion), Simeon, Manaen, Saul of Tarsus him-
self ; and, finally, that Lucius of Cyrene, who is
thought to be the Lucius whom Paul (in his Epistle to
the Romans) calls his kinsman, 11 and whom (in his
Epistle to the Colossians) he calls Liike the physi-
cian ;** in a word, the St Luke whom the ancient
fathers call indifferently Lucas, Lucius, and Lucanus.
From these facts, then, it becomes sufficiently evident
that St Luke and St Mark ranked at least among the
prophets whom the Lord had raised up in such num-
bers in all the Churches of the Jews and the Gentiles,
i Acts viii. 15, 1 7.
Acts xix. 6, 7; 1 Cor. xii. 28, xiv; Rom. i. 11, xv. 19, 29.
3 1 Tim. iv. 14; 2 Tim. i. 6. * ] Pet. T. J3.
Acts xiii. 1, xvi. 1ft, xxvii. J ; Rom. xvi. 21 ; Col. iv. 14; 2 Tim
iv. 11 ; Philem. 24; 2 Cor. viii. 18. 6 Acts xv. 32.
1 Acts xi. 27. 8 1 Cor. xii. 19, 20, xiv. 31, 3.
9 Acts xi. 28, xxi. 9, 10. Acts xiii. 1, 2.
Rom. xvi. 21. (Jol. iv. 14.
NEW TESTAMENT CANON HOW FORMED. 85
and that from among all the rest they were chosen by
the Holy Ghost to be conjoined with the apostles in
writing the sacred books of the New Testament.
But, moreover (and let this be specially noticed), the
prophetical authority of St Mark and St Luke is far
from resting solely on these inductions. It rests on the
testimony even of the apostles of Jesus Christ. It
ought not to be forgotten, that it was under the long
protracted government of those men of God, that the
divine canon of the Scriptures of the New Testament-
was collected and transmitted to all the Churches. By
a remarkable dispensation of God's providence, the
lives of the greater number of the apostles were pro-
longed to a great many years. St Peter and St Paul
lived to edify the Church of God for above thirty -four
years after the resurrection of their Master ; nay, St
John continued his ministry, in the province of Asia,
in the centre of the Roman empire, for more than thirty
years longer, after their death. The book of the Acts,
which was written by St Luke subsequently to his
Gospel, 1 had been already diffused through the Church
a long while (I mean to say, for ten years at least) be-
fore the martyrdom of St Paul. But St Paul, even
long before going to Rome, had already diffused the
gospel abundantly from Jerusalem as far as Illyricum. 2
The apostles maintained a constant correspondence
with the Christians of all countries ; they were daily
called to meet the cares they had to sustain with re-
spect to all the Churches. 8 St Peter, in his second
letter, addressed to the catholicity of God's Churches,
spoke to them even then of ALL THE EPISTLES of
St Paul as incorporated with the Old Testament.
And for more than half a century, all the Christian
Churches were formed and conducted under the super-
intend ence of these men of God. It was, accordingly,
with the assent, and under the prophetic government,
of these apostles, called as they were to bind and to
1 Acts i. I. a Rom. xv. 19. 2 Cor xi. 2d
86 INSPIRATION OF THE EVANGELISTS.
loose, and to become, next to Christ, the twelve foun-
dations of the universal Church, that the canon of the
Scriptures was formed, and that the new people of
God received its lively oracles, to transmit them to us. 1
And it is thus that the Gospel of Luke, that of Mark,
and the book of Acts, have been received by common
consent, on the same authoritative grounds, and with the
same submission as the apostolical books of Matthew,
of Paul, of Peter, and John. These books, theii, have
the same authority for us as all the rest ; and we are
called upon to receive them equally, " not as the word
of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which
worketh effectually in all that believe." 2
We venture to believe that these reflections will suf-
fice for enabling the reader to comprehend how little
ground there is for the distinction which Michaelis, 8
and some other German doctors, have made bold to
establish with respect to inspiration, between the two
evangelists and the other writers of the New Testament.
It even appears to us, that it was in order to obviate
any such supposition that Luke took care to place at
the head of his gospel the four verses that serve as a
preface to it. You see, in fact, that his object there is
to contrast the certainty and divinity of his own account
with the uncertainty and the human character of those
narrations, which many (TTO^XO/) had taken in hand to
set forth (eirrxj-i^gav dvaragatfda/) on the facts con-
nected with the gospel facts, he adds, most surely
believed among us, that is to say, among the apostles
and prophets of the New Testament (ruv reffX^gopopTj-
(j/svuv EV vifjJfv crgay/iarwi/, the word in the original sig-
nifying the highest degree of certainty, as may be
seen, Rom. iv. 21 ; xiv. 5 ; 2 Tim. iv. 5, 17.) And
therefore, adds St Luke, it seemed good to ME also,
having had perfect understanding of all things* FROM
ABOVE, to write of them unto thee in order.
1 Acts vii. 38 ; Rom. iii. 2. * 1 Thes. ii. 13.
3 Introd., vol. i. pp. 112-129, Englished.
4 nxfrixetooSixiri. Thus Demosthenes de Corona, i. 55.
GOSPELS OF MARK AND LTJKE CANONICAL. 87
St Luke had obtained this knowledge FROM ABOVE;
that is to say, by the wisdom which comes from above,
" and which had been given him." It is very true
that the meaning ordinarily attached to this last ex-
pression, in this passage, is from the very first, as if
instead of the word avudsv (from above), there were
here the same words dcr' dg%3js (from the commence-
ment), which we find in verse second. But it appears
to us that the opinion of Erasmus, of Gomar, of Henry,
of Lightfoot, and other commentators, ought to be pre-
ferred as more natural, and that we must take the
word cLviadsv here in the sense in which St John and
St James have used it, when they say: " Every perfect
gift cometh from above (James i. 1 7) " Thou couldst
have no power against me, except it were given thee
from above" (John xix. 11) " Except a man be born
from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God " ( Jobn
iii. 3) " The wisdom that cometh from above is first
pure." (James iii. 15, 17.)
The prophet Luke, then, " had obtained from above a
perfect understanding of all things that Jesus began both
to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up."
Meanwhile, whatever translation one may prefer
giving to these words, it is by other arguments that we
have shown how Luke and Mark were prophets, and
how their writings, transmitted to the Church by the
authority of the apostles, are incorporated with those
of the apostles, as well as with all the other books of
the everlasting Word of God.
Such, then, is the extent to which our argument has
conducted us, and this is, we have had to acknowledge, on
the very authority of Holy Scripture. It is, first of all,
that the inspiration of the words of the prophets was
entire ; that the Holy Ghost spake by them, and that
the Word of the Lord was upon their tongue. It is,
B/uu&;*5f T~S *t&yfutm * {Xfc- Theophrast., Char. Proem, 4 :
2 31 !rittauco*m>Br,<ra.i xau liKjcma, il i^SSf Xeyj, Josephus, in the first lines
of his book against Apion, opposes this same word (rejweoXoufiWra
'ji/iligenter assecutum) to rS irovftr,K>/*v (sciscitanti ab aliis).
88 INSPIRATION DID NOT IMPLY ECSTASY.
nex.t, that whatever was written in the Bible, having
been so written by prophecy, all the sacred books are
holy letters (/'ega yga^/^ara), written prophecies (crgo-
flnjrs/ow ygapSjg), and Scriptures given by divine inspira-
tion (ygufpai Qeovveuaroi.) Every thing there is from
God.
Nevertheless, the reader will be pleased to remember
(we once more repeat it here, although we have had
occasion more than once to say it already), that it does
not necessarily follow that the prophets of the Old and
New Testament were thrown into a state of excitation
and enthusiasm, which took them out of themselves;
we must, on the contrary, beware of entertaining any
such idea. The ancient Church attached so much im-
portance even to this principle, that under the reign of
the emperor Commodus, according to what Eusebius
says, Miltiades (the illustrious author of a Christian
Apology) " composed a book for the express purpose of
establishing," against Montanus and the false prophets
of Phrygia, " that true prophets ought to be masters ojf
themselves, and ought not to speak in ecstasy" - 1 The ac-
tion of God was exerted upon them without their pass-
ing entirely out of their ordinary condition. " The
spirits of the prophets," says St Paul, " are subject to
the prophets." 2 Their intellectual faculties were at the
time directed, not suspended. They knew, they felt,
they willed, they recollected, they understood, they
approved. They could say, " It seemed good to me
to write ; " and, as apostles, " It seemed good to the
Holy Ghost and to us." 3 And the words as well as
the thoughts were given them ; for, after all, words are
themselves but second thoughts relating to language,
and having recourse to it for the selection of expres-
1 Hist. Eccles., lib. V. C- 17- 'Ev a btratitixwcri trtei fou fttiSsva. U^a-
fir it txfTMirii AAE~V. See also Niceph., lib. iv. c. 24. See the same
principles in Tertullian (against Marcion, lib. iv.c. 22); in Epiphan.
(Adv. haereses, lib. ii. njeres., 48, c. 5); in. Jerome (Pramium in
Nahum.); in Basil the Great (Commentar. in Esaiam, proem, o).
1 Cor. xiv. 32. 3 Luke i. 3; Acts xv. 28.
EXAMPLES OF THE APOSTLES. 39
sions. In both cases, to explain the gift is equally easy
and equally difficult.
Meanwhile, as respects inspiration, there is something
in holy Scripture that strikes us if possible still more
than all those declarations of the apostles and of Jesus
Christ himself, and that is the examples they present to
us.
SECTION V.
THE EXAMPLES OF THE APOSTLES AND OF THEIR MASTER ATTEST
THAT, IN THEIR VIEW, ALL THE WORDS OF THE HOLT BOOKS
ARE GIVEN BY GOD.
First of all, consider what use is made by the apostles
themselves of the Word of God, and the terms in which
they quote it. See how, in doing this, they not only
think it enough to say, " God hath said;" 1 " the Holy
Ghost saith;" 2 " God saith in such a prophet;"* but
observe, farther, when they quote it, with what respect
they speak of what are for them its smallest particles :
how attentively they weigh every word; with what a
religious assurance they often insist on a single word,
in order to deduce from it the most serious conse-
quences, and the most fundamental doctrines.
For ourselves, we confess nothing more strongly im-
presses us than this view of the subject; nothing has
begot in us so deep and firm a confidence in the entire
inspiration of the Scriptures.
The preceding reasonings and testimonies seem of
themselves sufficient to carry conviction to every atten-
tive mind ; but if we felt conscious of any need on our
own part of having our belief of this truth fortified, we
feel that we should not go so far in search of reasons.
It would be enough for us to inquire what holy Scrip-
.v. 8; Heb.i. 8.
8 Acts xiii. 2, xxviii. 25; Heb. iii. 7i x. 15, and elsewhere.
Rom. ix. 25.
90 EXAMPLE OF ST PAUL.
ture was in the view of God's apostles, and how far,
according to their apprehension, its language was in-
spired. "What, for example, were St Paul's sentiments
on the subject? For we make no pretension to be
more enlightened divines than the twelve apostles.
Cleaving to the dogmatical theology of St Peter and
the exegetical of St Paul, among all the systems ever
broached on the inspiration of the Scriptures, theirs is
what we have decidedly resolved to prefer.
Hear, then, the apostle Paul when he quotes them,
and proceeds to comment upon them. On such occa-
sions he discusses their minutest expressions ; and often,
when about to deduce the most important consequences
from them, he employs arguments which, were it we
that should employ them in discussions with the doctors
of the Socinian school, would be treated as childish or
absurd. For such a respect for the words of the text,
we should be sent back to the sixteenth century with
its gross orthodoxy and its superannuated theology.
Mark with what reverence the apostle dwells upon
their most minute expressions ; with what confidence
he expects the submission of the Church, while he notes
the use of such a word rather than of such another ;
with what studiousness and affection he as it were
presses every one of them in his hands till the last drop
of meaning has been obtained from it.
Among so many examples which we might adduce,
let us confine ourselves, for brevity's sake, to the
Epistle to the Hebrews.
See how, at verse 8th of chapter ii., after quoting
these words, " Thou hast put all things under his feet," the
sacred author argues from the authority of the word all.
See how, at the llth verse, in quoting the 22d Psalm,
he argues from the expression my brethren, that the
Son of God behoved to put on the nature of man.
See how, at the 27th verse of chapter xii., in quoting
the prophet Haggai, he argues from the word once more,
" Yet once more."
See at the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th verses, how
ST PAUL HELD ALL SCRIPTURE INSPIRED. 9]
largely he argues from these words my son, of the 3d
chapter of the Proverbs, " My son, despise not thou
the chastening of the Lord."
See how, at the 10th chapter, in quoting the 40th
Psalm, he argues from the words Lo I come, set against
the words, " Thou wouldest not."
See how, at chapter viii., from the 8th to the 13th
verses, in quoting Jeremiah xxxi. 31, he argues from
the word new. .
See, at chapter iii. 7-19, and iv. 2-11, with ur-
gency in quoting the 95th Psalm, he argues from the
word " to-day" from the words " / have sworn" and,
above all, from the words " my rest," illustrated by that
other expression of Genesis, " And God rested on the
seventh day."
See how, at chapter iii. 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, he argues
from these words servant and my house, taken from the
book of Numbers, " My servant Moses, who is faithful
in all my house."
See, especially at chapter vii., the use he makes suc-
cessively of all the words of the 110th Psalm; mark
how he takes up each of its expressions, one after an-
other, in order to deduce from them the very highest
doctrines : " The Lord hath sworn ;" " he hath sworn
by himself;" Thou art a priest;" " Thou art a priest
for ever ;" " Thou art a priest after the order of Mel-
chisedec ;" " of Melchisedec king of Sedec," and " of
Melchisedec king of Salem." The exposition of the.
doctrines contained in each of these words will be found
to occupy three chapters, the 5th, the 6th, and the 7th.
But here I pause. Ca'n we fail to conclude from
such examples, that, in the view of the apostle Paul,
the Scriptures were inspired by God, even to their most
minute expressions ? Let each of us, then, place him-
self in the school of the man to whom had been given,
by the Spirit of God, the knowledge of the mystery of
Christ, as to a holy apostle and prophet. 1 One must
1 Eph. iii. 4, 6.
92 EXAMPLE OF JESUS CHRIST
necessarily either account him an enthusiast, and reject
in his person the testimonies of the Holy Bible, or re-
ceive with him the precious and fruitful doctrine of the
plenary inspiration of the Scriptures.
O ye who read these lines, to what school will ye at-
tach yourselves ? to that of the apostles, or to that o\
the doctors of this age ? "If any man take away from
the words of this hook " (this I testify, says St John),
" God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life,
and out of the holy city, and from the things which are
written in this Book." x
But, farther, let us turn from the apostles, prophets
as they are men sent by God for the establishment of
his kingdom, the pillars of the Church, the mouths of
the Holy Ghost, ambassadors of Jesus Christ ; let us,
for an instant, turn from them as men who had not yet
quite thrown off their Jewish traditions and clownish
prejudices, and let us go to the Master. Let us inquire
of him what the Scriptures were in his view of them.
Here is the grand question. The testimonies to which
we have appealed are peremptory, no doubt ; and the
doctrine of a plenary and entire inspiration is taught as
clearly in Scripture as that of the resurrection of the
dead can be ; that ought of itself to be enough for us ;
but we repeat, nevertheless, here is an argument which
for us renders all else superfluous. How did Jesus
Christ appeal to the Holy Bible ? What were his views
of the letter of the Scriptures ? What use did he make
of it, he who is its object and inspirer, beginning and
end, first and last? he whose Holy Spirit, says St
Peter, animated all the prophets of the Old Testament
(2 Peter i. 21), who was in heaven in the bosom of the
Father at the same time that he was seen here below,
dwelling among us and preaching the gospel to the
poor ? Among the most ardent defenders of their ver
l>al inspiration, we know not one that ever expressed
himself with more respect for the altogether divine au-
J Rev. xxii. 18, 19.
HOW DOES HE QUOTE THE SCRIPTURES ? ,93
thority and everlasting endurance of their most minute
expressions than was done by the man Jesus. And we
scruple not to say, that were any modern writer to
quote the Bible, as Jesus Christ did, with the view of
deducing from it any doctrine, he would forthwith have
to be ranked among the most zealous partisans of the
doctrine we defend. I am asked, What is your view
of the Holy Letters ? I answer, What thought my
Master of them ? how did he appeal to them ? what use
did he make of them ? what were their smallest details
in his eyes ?
Ah ! speak to them thyself, Eternal Wisdom, Un-
created Word, Judge of judges ! and as we proceed to
repeat to them here the declarations of thy mouth,
show them the majesty in which the Scriptures appeared
to thee show them the perfection thou didst recognise
in them, that everlasting endurance, above all, which
thou didst assign to their smallest iota, and which will
make them outlast the universe, after the very heavens
and the earth have passed away !
We are not afraid to say it : when we hear the Son
of God quote the Scriptures, every thing is said, in our
view, on their divine inspiration we need no farther
testimony. All the declarations of the Bible are, no
doubt, equally divine ; but this example of the Saviour
of the world has settled the question for us at once.
This proof requires neither long nor learned researches ;
it is grasped by the hand of a child as powerfully as by
that of a doctor. Should any doubt, then, assail your
soul, let it turn to the Lord of lords ; let it behold him
in presence of the Scriptures !
Follow Jesus in the days of his flesh. With what
serious and tender respect does he constantly hold in
his hands " the volume of the Book," to quote every
part of it, and note its shortest verses. See how one
word, one single word, whether of a psalm or of an
historical book, has for him the authority of a .law.
Mark with what confident submission he receives the
whole Scriptures, without ever contesting its sacred
94 RATIONALIST INFATUATION.
canon ; for he knows that " salvation cometh of the
Jews," and that, under the infallible providence of God,
" to them were committed the oracles of God." Did I
say, he receives them? From his childhood to the
grave, and from his rising again from the grave to his
disappearance in the clouds, what does he bear always
about with him, in the desert, in the temple, in the
synagogue ? What does he continue to quote with his
resuscitated voice, just as the heavens are about to ex-
claim, " Lift up your heads, ye everlasting doors, and
the king of glory shall come in ?" It is the Bible, ever
the Bible ; it is Moses, the Psalms, and the prophets :
he quotes them, he explains them, but how ? Why,
verse by verse, and word by word.
In what alarming and melancholy contrast, after be-
holding all this, do we see those misguided men present
themselves in our days, who dare to judge, contradict,
cull, and mutilate the Scriptures. Who does not tremble,
after following with his eyes the Son of Man as he
commands the elements, stills the storms, and opens
the graves, while, filled with so profound a respect for
the sacred volume, he declares that he is one day to
judge by that book the quick and the dead ? Who does
not shudder, whose heart does not bleed, when, after
observing this, we venture to step into a Rationalist
academy, and see the professor's chair occupied by a
poor mortal, learned, miserable, a sinner, responsible,
yet handling God's Word irreverently; when we follow
him as he goes through this deplorable task before a
body of youths, destined to be the guides of a whole
people youths capable of doing so much good if
guided to the heights of the faith, and so much mischief
if tutored in disrespect for those Scriptures which they
are one day to preach ? With what peremptory deci-
sion do such men display the phantasmagoria of their
hypotheses; they retrench, they add, they praise, they
blame, and pity the simplicity which, reading the Bible
as it was read by Jesus Christ, like him clings to
every syllable, and never dreams of finding error in the
BASH MEN UNWITTINGLY BLASPHEME. 95
Word of God ! They pronounce on the intercalations
and retrenchments that Holy Scripture must have
undergone intercalations and retrenchments never
suspected hy Jesus Christ ; they lop off the chapters
they do not understand, and point out blunders, ill-sus-
tained or ill-concluded reasonings, prejudices, impru-
dences, and instances of vulgar ignorance.
May God forgive my being compelled to put this
frightful dilemma into words, but the alternative is in-
evitable ! Either Jesus Christ exaggerated and spoke
incoherently when he quoted the Scriptures thus, 01
bhese rash wretched men unwittingly blaspheme their
divine majesty. It pains us to write these lines. God
is our witness that we could have wished to recall, and
then to efface them ; but we venture to say, with pro-
Pound feeling, that it is in obedience, it is in charity,
that they have been penned. Alas ! in a few short
years both the doctors and the disciples will be laid in
the tomb, they shall wither like the grass ; but not one
jot or tittle of that divine book will then have passed
away; and as certainly as the Bible is the truth, and
that it has changed the face of the world, as certainly
shall we see the Son come in the clouds of heaven, and
judge, by his eternal Word, the secret thoughts of all
men ! x . . . "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man
as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower
thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth
for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is
preached unto you;" 2 this is the word which will judge us.
Now, then, we proceed to close our proofs, by review-
ing, under this aspect, the ministry of Jesus Christ.
Let us follow him from the age of twelve to his descent
into the grave, or rather, to his passing into the cloud,
in which he went out of sight; and throughout the whole
course of that incomparable career, let us see what the
Scriptures were in the eye of Him who " upholds all
things by the word of his power."
i Rom. ii, 16; John xii. 48; Matt. xxv. 31. B 1 Pet. i. 24, 25.
10
96 CHRIST'S EXAMPLE IN THE WILDERNESS.
First of all, let us contemplate him at the age of
twelve years. He grew, like one of the children of
men, in wisdom and in stature; he is in the midst of
the doctors in the temple of Jerusalem ; he ravishes
with his answers those who hear him ; for, said they,
"he knows the Scriptures without having studied
them." 1
Behold him from the time he commenced his ministry.
See him filled with the Holy Ghost ; he is led into the
wilderness, there to sustain, as the first Adam did in
Eden, a mysterious contest with the powers of dark-
ness. The impure spirit dares to approach him, hent
on his overthrow; but how will the Son of God repel
him, even he who had come to destroy the works of the
Devil ? Solely with the Bible. His only weapon, three
successive times, in his divine hands, is the sword of the
Spirit, the Bible. He quotes, thrice successively, the
Book of Deuteronomy. 2 On every fresh temptation,
he, the Word made flesh, defends himself by a sentence
of the oracles of God, and by a sentence, too, the whole
force of which lies in the use of a single word, or of two
words ; first of these words (frw ^oi/w), bread alone;
then of those words, " Thou shalt not tempt the Lord
(oufc exv-sioafcis Kug/ov);" then, finally, of these two
words (dsbv tfgoffxvvfifcis), Thou shalt worship God.
What an example for us ! His whole reply, his whole
defence is this: "It is written;" "Get thee behind
me, Satan, for it is written;" and as soon as this ter-
rible and mysterious contest closed, the angels drew
near to minister to him.
But, mark this farther, such was the respect of the
Son of man for the authority of every word of the
Scriptures, that the impure spirit himself, powerful as
he was in evil, and who knew what all the words of the
Bible were in his antagonist's eyes, could fancy no
surer means of shaking his will than by quoting to him
(but at the same time mutilating) a verse of the 91st
1 John vii. 15. * Deut. viii. 3, vi. 13, x. 20; Matt. iv. 1-11.
OUB SAVIOUR AT NAZARETH. 97
psalm ; and forthwith Jesus Christ, to confound him,
thinks it is enough to reply once more with, "It is
written."
See how his priestly ministry commenced with the
use of the Scriptures ; and see how his prophetic min-
istry commenced soon after with the use of the Scrip-
tures.
Once engaged in his work, let us follow him as he
goes from, place to place doing good, displaying in his
poverty his creative power ever for the relief of others,
never for his own. He speaks, and it is done ; he casts
out devils, he turns the storm into a calm, he raises the
dead. Yet, amid all these tokens of greatness, ohserve
what the Scriptures are to him. The Word is ever with
him; not in his hands, for he knows it thoroughly, but
in his memory and in his incomparable heart. Mark
how he speaks of it ! When he unrols the sacred vo-
lume, it is as if an opening were made in heaven, that
we may hear Jehovah's voice. With what reverence,
with what submission, does he expound the Scriptures,
comment upon them, quote them word by word ! See
how it becomes his grand concern to heal men's dis-
eases and to preach the Scriptures, as it was afterwards
to die and to fulfil the Scriptures !
See who comes, " as his custom was," into the syna-
gogue on the Sabbath-day; for we are told he taught
in their synagogues. 1 He goes into that at Nazareth ;
and wbat do we find him doing there he, the ever-
lasting Wisdom, possessed by Jehovah in the beginning
of his way, brought forth when there were no depths,
before the mountains were settled, and before the hills ? 2
He rises and takes the Bible, opens it at Isaiah, reads
some words there; then having closed the book, he sits
down, and while the eyes of all that are in the syna-
gogue are fastened on him, he begins to say, " This day
is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." 8
See him as he passes through Galilee, and mark how
Luke iv, 15, 16. 8 Prov. viii. 22, 25. Luke iv. 21.
98 OUR SAVIOUR BEFORE THE SADDTJCEES.
he employs himself there. " The volume of the hook"
is still in his hands; he explains it line by line, word
hy word ; he points out to our respect its most minute
expressions, as he would those of " the ten words "
uttered on Sinai.
See him once more in Jerusalem, before the pool of
Bethesda; what do we find him saying to the people ?
" Search the Scriptures." (John v.* 39.)
See him in the holy place, in the midst of which he
had dared to say aloud, " In this place is one greater
than the holy place." (Matt. xii. 6.) Follow him into
the presence of the Sadducees and the Pharisees, while
he reprehends them successively with these words, " It
is written," as he had done in the case of Satan.
Listen to his reply to the Sadducees who denied the
resurrection of the body. How does he refute them ?
By ONE SOLE WORD of an HISTORICAL passage of the
Bible ; by a single verb in the present tense, instead of
that same verb in the past tense. " Ye greatly err,"
said he to them, " NOT KNOWING THE SCRIPTURES. Have
ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God,
saying, I am the God of Abraham ! " It is thus that he
proves to them the doctrine of the resurrection. God,
on Mount Sinai, four hundred years after the death
of Abraham, says to Moses, not " I teas" but "I am"
the God of Abraham; I am that now (an^as ^i-rVs '33s),
which the Holy Ghost translates ('Eyw hpi 6 sbs
'AjSgoca//,). There is a resurrection, then; for God is not
the God of a few handfuls of dust, the God of the dead,
the God of nothing : he is the God of the living. Those
men therefore are, in the view of God, still alive. 1
Next, behold him in the presence of the Pharisees.
It is again by the letter of the Word that he proceeds
to confound them.
Some had by this time followed him into the coasts
of Judea beyond Jordan, and came to him asking to be
informed what were his doctrines on the subject of
i Matt. xxii. 31, 32.
OUE SAVIOUR BEFORE THE PHARISEES. 99
marriage and divorce. Now, what followed on the part
of Jesus Christ? He might certainly have given an
authoritative reply, and announced his own laws on the
subject. Is he not himself the King of kings and Lord
of lords ? But no ; it was to the Bible that he made
his appeal, still for the same purpose of making it the
basis of doctrine ; it was to these simple words taken
from a purely historical passage in Genesis, 1 " HAVE
YE NOT READ, that he which made them at the beginning
made them male and female ; so that they twain shall
be one flesh? "What therefore God hath joined to-
gether, let not man put asunder." 2
But listen to him, especially when in the temple he
would prove to other Pharisees, by the Scriptures, the
divinity of the expected Messiah. Here likewise, to
demonstrate this, he still insists on the use of A SINGLE
WORD, which he proceeds to take from the Book of
Psalms : " If the Messiah be the son of David," said
he, " how doth David, BY THE SPIRIT, call him LORD ;
saying (at the 110th Psalm), The Lord said unto my
Lord, Sit thou on my right hand ? If David then call
him Lord, how is he his son ? "
How happens it, that among those Pharisees none
was found to say in reply, " What ! do you mean to in-
sist on a single word, and still more on a term bor-
rowed from a poesy eminently lyrical, where the royal
Psalmist might, without material consequence, have
employed too lively a construction, high-flown expres-
sions, and words which, doubtless, he had not theolo-
gically pondered before throwing them into his verses ?
Would you follow such a mode of minutely interpreting
each expression as is at once fanatical and servile?
Would you worship the letter of the Scriptures to such
an extreme ? Would you build a whole doctrine upon
a word?"
Yes, I do, is Christ's reply ; yes, I will throw myself
on a single word, because that word is God's ! And,
Gen. i. 27, ii. 24. * Matt. xix. 4, 5, 6.
100 OUR SAVIOUR ON THE CROSS.
to cut short all your objections, I tell you that it is BY
THE SPIRIT that David wrote all the words of his
hymns ; and I ask you " how, if the Messiah be his
son, David, BY THE SPIRIT, can call him his Lord, when
he says, The Lord said ttnto my Lord ? "
Students of God's Word, and you especially who are
to be his ministers, and who, as your preparation for
preaching it, would desire first of all to have received
it into a good and honest heart, behold what every
saying, every single word "of the Book of God, was in
the regard of your Master. Go and do likewise !
But more than this. Again let us listen to him,
even on the cross. There he poured out his soul as an
offering for sin ; all his bones were out of joint ; he
was poured out as water; his heart was like wax,
melted in the midst of his bowels ; his tongue cleaved
to his jaws ; he was about to give up his spirit to his
Father. But, previous to this, what do we find him
do ? He desires to collect his remaining strength, in
order to recite a psalm which the Church of Israel had
sung on her religious festivals for a thousand years,
and which told over, one after another, all his sorrows
and all his prayers : " Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani (my
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me) ?" He does
even more than this : listen to him. There remained
in the Scriptures one word which had not yet been ful-
filled. Vinegar had still to be given him on that cross
(this the Holy Ghost had declared a thousand years
before in the 69th Psalm). "After this," it is written,
" Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished,
that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he
said, It is finished : and having bowed his head, he
gave up the ghost." *
When David sang the 69th Psalm on Shoshannim and
the 22d Psalm on Aijeleth, did he know the prophetic
meaning of all these words, of those hands and feet
i John zix. 28-30.
OUR SAVIOUR AFTER HIS RESURRECTION. 101
that were pierced, of that gall poured out, of that vine-
gar, of those garments that were parted, of that vesture
on which a lot was cast, of that mocking populace,
wagging their heads and making mouths ? It matters
little to tfs his understanding it ; the Holy Ghost at
least understood it, and David spake BY THE SPIRIT,
said Jesus Christ. The heaven and the earth shall
pass away; but there was not in that book a jot or
tittle that could pass away till all was fulfilled. (John x.
35; Matt. v. 18).
Meanwhile, behold something, if possible, more strik-
ing still. Jesus Christ rises from the tomb; he has
overcome death ; he is about to return to the Father,
there to resume that glory which he had with the Father
before the world began. Let us follow him, then,
during those fleeting moments with which he would
still favour the earth. What words are now about to
proceed from that mouth, again restored to life ? Why,
Avords from Holy Scripture. Still he quotes it, explains
it, preaches it. See him, first of all, on the way to
Emmaus, walking with Cleopas and his friend ; after-
wards in the upper chamber ; and, later still, on the
borders of the lake. How is he employed ? In ex-
pounding the sacred books ; he begins with Moses, he
continues through all the Prophets and the Psalms ; he
shows them what had been said concerning him in all
the Scriptures; he opens their minds to understand
them ; he makes their hearts burn within them as he
speaks of them. 1
But we have not yet done. All these quotations
show us what the Holy Bible was in the eyes of Him
" in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge" (Col. ii. 3); and " by whom all things sub-
sist" (Col. i. 17). But on the letter of the Scriptures,
listen further to two declarations, and a last example
of our Lord.
" It is easier," says he, " for heaven and earth to
1 Luke xxiv. *i7, 44, 32.
102 OUR SAVIOUR'S THEOLOGY.
pass, than for one tittle (xegulci) of the law to fall j 1
and by the law Jesus Christ understood the whole of
the Scriptures, and even, more particularly, the Book of
Psalms. What terms could possibly be imagined capa-
ble of expressing, with greater force and precision, the
principle which we defend ; that is to say, the autho-
rity, the entire divine inspiration, and the perpetuity of
all the parts, and of the very letter of the Scriptures ?
Ye who study God's Word, here behold the theology
of your Master ! Be ye then divines after his manner ;
be your Bible the same as that of the Son of God ! Of
that not a single tittle can fall.
" Till heaven and earth pass," saith he, " one jot cr
one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be
fulfilled." (Matt. v. 18.) All the words of the Scriptures,
accordingly, even to the smallest stroke of a letter, are
no less than the words OF JESUS CHRIST ; for he hath
also said, " Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my
words shall not pass away." (Luke xxi. 33.)
The impugners of these doctrines ask us if we are
bold enough to maintain that Holy Scripture is a law
of God even in its words, as hyssop, or as an oak, is a
work of God even, in its leaves. We reply, with all the
Fathers of the Church, Yes, even in its " words, even
to (Jura, f, q fiia xega/a) one jot or one tittle !"
But, passing from these two declarations, let us final-
ly direct our attention to a last example given by our
Lord which we have not yet adduced.
It is still Jesus Christ who is about to quote the
Scriptures, but claiming for their smallest words such
an authority, that one is compelled to rank him among
the most ardent partisans of verbal inspiration, and that
we do not think, "that had we before us all the writings
of divines the most uncompromising in their orthodoxy,
we should any where find an example of more profound
respect for the letter of Scripture, and for the plenitude
of their divine inspiration.
Luke xvi. 17.
* John x. 34, as did also the Jews, xii. 34; Bom. iii. 19.
HE ARGTTES FROM A SINGLE WOHD. 103
*
It was winter. Jesus walked in the temple in Solo-
mon's (the eastern) porch; the Jews came about him,
upon which he said to them, " I give eternal life unto
my sheep, and they shall never perish, neither shall any
pluck them out. of my hand: I and the Father are
one." People were astonished at such language; but
he assumed a still bolder tone, until at last the Jews,
exclaiming that it was blasphemy, took up stones to
stone him, telling him they did so, " because thou, be-
ing a man, makest thyself God." 1
Now then, let the reader carefully mark the several
points involved in the answer made by Jesus Christ.
He quotes a saying taken from one of the psalms, and
proceeds to rest the whole of his doctrine on that single
saying : for " he made himself equal with God," says
John elsewhere (v. 18). In maintaining the most
sublime and most mysterious of his doctrines, and, in
order to legitimitize the most extraordinary of his pre-
tensions, he appeals to certain words in the 82d Psalm.
But, mark well ! before pronouncing the words he takes
care to interrupt himself; he pauses in a solemn paren-
thesis, and exclaims in a tone of authority, And the
Scripture cannot be broken (xa/ ou duvarai hv&ijvai t;
Has sufficient attention been paid to this ? Not only
is our Lord's argument here founded entirely on the
use made by the Psalmist of a single word, and not
only does he proceed to establish the most astonishing
of his doctrines on this expression ; but further, in
thus quoting the Book of Psalms in order to make us
understand that in his eyes the whole book was dictated
by the Holy Ghost, and that ey,ery word of it carried
the authority of the law, Jesus calls it by the name of
LAW, and says to the Jews, " Is it not written in your
law, I have said ye are gods ?" These words are placed
in the middle of a hymn; they might seem to have
escaped from the unreflecting fervour of the prophet
1 John x. 23, and following verses.
104 OUR LORD UNDER SOLOMON'S PORCH.
Asaph, or from the burning raptures of his poetry.
And were we not to admit the full inspiration of all
that is written, one might be tempted to tax them with
indiscretion, since the imprudent use which the Psalmist
may have made of them, might have led 4he people to
usages elsewhere censured by the Word of God, and to
idolatrous imaginations. How then, once more we ask,
was there no rationalist scribe from the universities of
Israel to be found there, under Solomon's porch, to
say to him, " You cannot, Lord, claim the authority
of that expression. The use that Asaph makes of it
can have been neither considerate nor becoming. Al-
though inspired as respects the thoughts suggested by
his piety, he no doubt did not maturely weigh every
little word with a very scrupulous regard to the use
that might possibly be made of them a thousand years
after his own day. It were rash, therefore, to insist
upon them."
But now, let the reader mark, how our Lord antici-
pates the profane rashness of such an objection. Ob-
serve well : he solemnly reproves it ; he proceeds to
pronounce words concerning himself which would be
blasphemy in the mouth of an archangel. " I and the
Father are one ;" but he interrupts himself, and imme-
diately after saying, " Is it not written in your law, ye
are gods?" he stops, and, fixing his .eyes with a look
of authority on the doctors who surround him, he
exclaims, " AND THE SCRIPTURE CANNOT BE BROKEN !"
As if he had said, " Beware ! there is not in the sacred
books a single word to be found fault with, nor a single
word that one can neglect. This which I cite in this
32d Psalm, has been traced by the hand that made the
heavens." If, then, he has been willing to give the
name of gods to men, in so far as they were christs
(anointed ones), and types of the true Christ, who is
emphatically the Anointed One, and taking care never-
theless to call to mind "that they should die like
men," how shall it not still more appertain to me
to take that name to myself? I, " the everlasting
THE SCRIPTURE CANNOT BE BROKEN. 105
Father," Emmanuel, the God-man, who do the works
of my Father, and on whom the Father hath put his
seal ? 1
Here, then, we ask of every serious reader (and our
argument, be it well observed, is altogether independent
of the orthodox meaning or the Socinian meaning
people may choose to give to the words of Jesus Christ) ;
we ask, Is it possible to admit that the Being who
makes such a use of the Scriptures DOES NOT BELIEVE IN
THEIR PLENARY VERBAL INSPIRATION ? And if he Could
have imagined that the words of the Bible were left to
the free choice and pious fancies of the sacred writers,
would he ever have dreamed of founding such argu-
ments on such a word ? The Lord Jesus, our Saviour
and our Judge, believed then in the most complete in-
spiration of the Scriptures ; .and for him the first rule of
all hermeneutics, and the commencement of all exegesis,
was this simple maxim applied to the most minute ex-
pressions of the written word, " AND THE SCRIPTURE
CANNOT BE BROKEN."
Let, then, the Prince of Life, the light of the world,
reckon all of us as his scholars ! "What he believed let
us receive. What he respected let us revere. Let us
press to our sickly hearts that Word to which he sub-
mitted his saviour heart, and all the thoughts of his
holy humanity, and to it let us subject all the thoughts
of our fallen humanity. There let us look for God, even
in its minutest passages ; in it let us daily dip the roots
of our being, " like the tree planted by the rivers of
waters, which bringeth forth his fruit in his season, and
his leaf shall not wither."
i Isa, ix. 6, vii. 14; John vi. 27.
106 DIDACTIC ABSTRACT.
CHAPTER III.
BRIEF DIDACTIC ABSTRACT OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE
DIVINE INSPIRATION.
IT has been our desire that this work should not bear so
strictly theological a character, as that Christian women,
or other persons not conversant with certain studies, and
not acquainted with the sacred languages, should be de-
terred from the perusal of it. Nevertheless, we should
be wanting to part of our object if the doctrine were
not, on some points, stated with more precision. We
have to request, therefore, that in order to avoid being
led off, under another form, into an excessive length of
development, we may be allowed to exhibit it here in a
more didactic shape, and to sum it up in a short cate-
chetical sketch. We will do little more than indicate
the proper place of the points already treated ; and will
enter somewhat at large into the consideration of those
only that have not yet been mentioned.
SECTION L
CATECHETICAL SKETCH OP THE MAIN POINTS OF THE DOCTRINE.
I. What, then, are we to understand by divine inspi-
ration ?
Divine inspiration is the mysterious power put forth
DEGREES OF INSPIRATION AN IDLE CONJECTURE. 107
by the Spirit of God on the authors of holy writ, to
make them write it, to guide them even in the employ-
ment of the words they use, and thus to preserve them
from all error ?
II. What are we - told of the spiritual power put
forth on the men of God while they were writing their
sacred books ?
"We are told that they were led or moved (tpe^ofisvoi} "not
by the will of man, but by the Holy Ghost ; so that
they set forth the things of God, not in words which
man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost
teacheth." x " God," says the apostle, 3 " spake BY THE
PROPHETS at sundry times, and in divers manners (-TroXu-
/j,igu$ xai irohuTgdirug) ;" sometimes enabling them to
understand what he made them say ; sometimes without
doing so ; sometimes by dreams 3 and by visions which
he afterwards made them relate ; sometimes by giving
them words internally (Xoyt<> ivBiafartf)'), which he caused
them immediately to utter ; sometimes by words trans-
mitted to them externally (Xoyw -s-gopcg/xw), which he
caused them to repeat.*
III. But what passed in their hearts and minds while
they were writing ?
This we cannot tell. It is a fact which, subject be-
sides to great varieties, could not be for us an object
either of scientific inquiry or of faith.
IV. Have not modern authors, however, who have
written on this subject, often distinguished in the Scrip-
tures three or four degrees of inspiration (superinten-
dence, elevation, direction, suggestion)^
This is but idle conjecture ; and the supposition,
1 2 Peter i. 21 ; 1 Cor. ii. 13. * Heb. i. 1.
Num. xii. 6; Job xxxiii. 15; Dan. i. 17, ii. 6, vii. 1; Gen. xx. 6,
xxxi. 10 ; 1 Kings iii. 5; Matt. i. 20, ii. 12, 22; Acts ii. 17.
4 Num. xx. 6, xxiv. 4; Job vii. 14; Gen. xx. 3; Ps. Ixxxix. 19;
Matt. xvii. 9; Acts ii. 17, ix. 10-12, x. 3, 17, 19, xi. 5, xii. 9, xvi.
9, 10; 2 Cor. xii. 1, 2.
108 BAUMGARTEN'S DEFINITION.
besides, is in contradiction with the Word of God,
which knows but one kind of inspiration. Here, there
is none true but suggestion.
V. Do we not see, however, that the men of God
were profoundly acquainted, and often even profoundly
affected, .with the sacred things which they taught, with
the future things which they predicted, with the past
things which they related ?
No doubt they might be so nay, in most instances
they were so but they might not have been so ; this
happened in different measures, of which the degree
remains to us unknown, and the knowledge of which
is not required of us.
VI. "What then must we think of those definitions of
divine inspiration, in which Scripture seems to be re-
presented as the altogether human expression of a reve-
lation altogether divine ; what, for example, must we
think of that of Baumgarten, 1 who says, that inspiration
is but the means by which revelation, at first immediate,
became mediate, and took the form of a book (medium
quo revelatio iminediata, mediata facta, inque libros re-
lata est ?)
These definitions are not exact, and may give rise to
false notions of inspiration. ' I say they are not exact.
They contradict facts. Immediate revelation does not
necessarily precede inspiration ; and when it precedes
it, it is not its measure. The empty air prophesied; 2
a hand coming forth from a wall wrote the words of
God ; s a dumb animal reproved the madness of a pro-
phet.* Balaam prophesied without any desire to do so;
and the believers of Corinth did so without even
knowing the meaning of the words put by the Holy
Ghost on their lips. 5
De Diacrimme Revelat. et Inspirationis.
3 Gen. iii. 14, &c., iv. 6; Exod. iii. 6, &c., xix. 3, &c.; Deut. iv.
12;. Matt. iii. 17, xvii 5.
8 Dan. v. 5. 4 2 Pet. ii. 16. fi 1 Cor. xiv.
INSPIRATION AND ILLUMINATION. 109
I would next observe, that these definitions produce
or conceal false notions of inspiration. In fact, they
assume its being nothing more than the natural expres-
sion of a supernatural revelation ; and that the men of
God had merely of themselves, and in a human way, to
put down in their books what the Holy Ghost made
them see in a divine way, in their understandings.
But inspiration is more than this. Scripture is not the
mind of God elaborated by the understanding of man,
to be promulgated in the words of man ; it is at once
the mind of God and the word of God.
VII. The Holy Ghost having in all ages illuminated
God's elect, and having moreover distributed miraculous
powers among them in ancient times, in which of these
two orders of spiritual gifts ought we to rank inspira-
tion ?
"We must rank it among the extraordinary and wholly
miraculous gifts. The Holy Ghost in all ages en-
lightens the elect by his powerful inward virtue; he
testifies to them of Christ , -1 gives them the unction of
the Holy One ; teaches them all things, and convinces
them of all truth. 2 But, besides these ordinary gifts of
illumination and faith, the same Spirit shed extraor-
dinary ones on the men who were commissioned to
promulgate and to write the oracles of God. Divine
inspiration was one of those gifts.
VIII. Is the difference, then, between illumination
and inspiration a difference of kind or only of degree ?
It is a difference of kind, and not of degree only.
IX. Nevertheless, did not the apostles, besides in-
spiration, receive from the Holy Ghost illumination in
extraordinary measure, and in its most eminent degree ?
In its most eminent degree, is what none can affirm ;
in an extraordinary degree, is what none can contradict.
i John xv. 26.
* 1 John ii. 20, 27; John 16-26; vii. 38, 39.
110 INSPIRATION NOT ILLUMINATION.
The apostle Paul, for example, did not receive the
gospel from any man, but by a revelation from Jesus
Christ. 1
He wrote " ALL HIS EPISTLES," St Peter tells us, 2 not
only in words taught by the Holy Ghost, 3 as had been
the OTHER SCRIPTURES (of the old Testament), but ac-
cording to a wisdom which had been given to him. 4
He had the knowledge of the mystery of Christ. 8 Jesus
Christ had promised to give his disciples not only " a
mouth, but wisdom to testify of him." 6 David, when
he seemed to speak only of himself in the Psalms, KNEW
that it was of the Messiah that his words were to be
understood : " Being a prophet, and knowing that of the
fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, God would
raise up Christ to sit on. his throne." 7
X. Why, then, should we not say that divine inspira-
tion is but illumination in its most exalted and abun-
dant measure?
We must beware of saying so ; for thus we should
have but a narrow, confused, contingent, and constantly
fluctuating idea of inspiration. In fact,
1. God, who often conjoined those two gifts in one
man, often also saw fit to disjoin them, in order that he
might give us to understand that they essentially differ,
the one from the other, and that, when united, they are
independent. Every true Christian has the Holy
Ghost, 8 but every Christian is not inspired, and such an
one who utters the words of God, may not have received
either life-giving affections or life-giving light.
2. It may be demonstrated by a great many examples,
that the one of these gifts was not the measure of the
other; and that the divine inspiration of the prophets
did not observe the ratio of their knowledge, any more
than that of their holiness.
i Gai. i. 12, 16; 1 Cor. XT. 3. * 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16.
a 1 Cor. ii. 13. * 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16.
5 Epkiii. 3. e Luke xxi. 15
i Acts ii. 30.
8 1 John ii. 20, 27; Jer. xxxi. 34; John vi. 45.
INSPIRATION THE OBJECT OP FAITH. Jll
3. Far, indeed, from the one of those gifts heing the
measure of the other, one may even say that divine in-
spiration appeared all the more strikingly the more
that the illumination of the sacred writer remained in
arrear of his illumination. When you behold the very
prophets, who were most enlightened hy God's Spirit,
bending over their own pages after having written them,
and endeavouring to comprehend the meaning which
the Spirit in them had caused them to express, it should
become manifest to you that their divine inspiration was
independent of their illumination.
4. Even supposing the prophet's illumination raised
to its utmost pitch, still it did not reach the altitude of
the divine idea, and there might be much more mean-
ing in the word dictated to them than the prophet was yet
cognisant of. David,, doubtless, in hymning his psalms,
knew 1 that they referred to " Him who was to be born
of his loins, to sit upon his throne for ever." Most of
the prophets, like Abraham their father, saw the day
of Christ, and when they saw it, were glad ; 2 they
searched what the Spirit of Christ, which was in them,
did signify, when it testified beforehand of the suffer-
ings of the Messiah, and the glory that should follow. 8
Yet notwithstanding all this, our Lord attests to us
that the simplest Christian, the least (in knowledge)
in the kingdom of God, knows more on that subject
than the greatest of the prophets.*
5. These gifts differ from each other in essential cha-
racters, which we will presently describe.
6. Finally, it is always the .inspiration of the book
that is presented to us as an object of faith, never the
inward state of him that writes it. His knowledge or
ignorance nowise affects the confidence I owe to his
words ; and my soul ought ever to look not so much to
the lights of his understanding as to the God of all
Acts ii. 30. 2 John viii. 56. " 1 Peter i. 1 1 .
* Mat. xi. 11. Michaelis Introd. tome i. p. 116-129, French
translation. (That author thinks, that in this passage the least
means the least prophet.)
112 INSPIRATION INTERMITTENT,
holiness, who speaks to me hy his mouth. The Saviour
desired, it is true, that most of those who related his
history should also have been witnesses of what they
related. This was, no doubt, in order that the world
might listen to them with the greater confidence, and
might not start reasonable doubts as to the truth of
their narratives. But the Church, in her faith, looks
much higher than this : to her the intelligence of the
writers is imperfectly known, and a matter of compa-
rative indifference what she does know is their inspi-
ration. It is never in the breast of the prophet that she
goes to look for its source ; it is in that of her God.
" Christ speaks in me," says St Paul, " and God hath
spoken to our fathers in the prophets." 1 " "Why look
ye so earnestly on us," say to her all the sacred writers,
" as though by our own power or holiness we had done
this work? " 2 Look upwards.
XI. If there exist, then, between these two spiritual
graces of illumination and inspiration a specific differ-
ence, in what must we say that it consists ?
Though you should find it impossible to say what
that difference is, you would not the less be obliged by
the preceding reasons to declare that it does exist. In
order to be able fully to reply to this question, it were
necessary that you should know the nature and the
mode of both these gifts ; whereas the Holy Ghost has
never explained to us, either how he infuses God's
thoughts into the understanding, of a believer, or how
he puts God's words into the mouth of a prophet.
Nevertheless, we can here point out two essential cha-
racters by which these two operations of the Holy Ghost
have always shown themselves to be distinct : the one
of these characters relates to their duration, the other
to their measure.
In point of duration, illumination is continuous,
whereas inspiration is intermittent. In point of mea-
2 Cor. liii. 3; Heb. i. 1 (J). 2 Acts iii. 12.
MIRACULOUS GIFTS INTERMITTENT. 113
sure, illumination admits of degrees, whereas inspira-
tion, does not admit of them.
XII. What are we to understand by saying that illu-
mination is continuous, and inspiration intermittent ?
The illumination of a believer by the Holy Ghost is
a permanent work. Having commenced for him on
the day of his new birth, it goes on increasing, and
attends him with its rays to the termination of his
course'. That light, no doubt, is but too much obscured
by his acts of faithlessness and negligence, but never
more will it leave him altogether. " His path," says
the wise man, " is like the shining light, shining more
and more unto the perfect day." 1 " When it pleased
God, who separated me from my mother's womb, to
reveal his Son in me," 2 he preserves to the end the
knowledge of the mystery of Jesus Christ, and can at
all times set forth its truths and its glories. As it was
not flesh and blood that had revealed these things to
him, but the father, 3 that unction which he received
from the Holy One * abides in him, says St John, and
he needs not that any man teach him; but as the same
anointing teacheth him of all things, and is truth, so,
even as he hath been taught by it, he will remain in it.
Illumination, therefore, abideth on the faithful ; but it
is not so with miraculous gifts, nor with the divine in-
spiration, which is one of those gifts. 5
As for miraculous gifts, they were always intermit-
tent with the men of God, if we except the only man
who " received not the Spirit by measure." 6 The
apostle Paul, for example, who at one time restored
Eutychus to life, and by whom God wrought such spe-
cial miracles 7 (so as that it sufficed that handkerchiefs
and aprons should touch his body and be laid upon the
sick, in order to cures being effected) ; at other times
could not relieve either his colleague Trophimus or his
i Prov. iv. 18. * Gal. i. 15. Matt. XT!. 1?
1 John ii. 2Q 27. * 1 Cor. xiv. 1; Acts xix. 6.
8 John iii. 34, 1 Acts xix. 11, 12.
114 INSPIBATION CAME BY INTERVALS.
beloved Epaphroditus, or his son Timothy. 1 It is the
same with inspiration, which is only the most excellent
of miraculous gifts. In the Lord's prophets, it was ex-
erted only by intervals. The prophets, and even the
apostles, who (as we shall show) were prophets, and
more than prophets, 2 did not prophesy as often as they
pleased. Inspiration was sent to them by intervals ; it
came upon them according as the Holy Ghost saw fit
to give it to them (xad&s rb TLvsvfLo, ediSou awoTg affop-
02yyg<rt)a/); 8 for " never did prophecy come by the will
of man," says St Peter ;* " but holy men of God spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." God spake
in the prophets (sv ro7g crgo^ra/g), says St Paul, when
he wished to do so, at sundry times (croXu/iJgwg), as
well as in divers manners (ffoXor^owwg). On such a day,
and at such a time, it is often written, " the word of
Jehovah was upon such a man (V^K mm-^m 'nil)." " In
the tenth year, on the twelfth day of the tenth month,
the word of Jehovah came to me," said the prophet.*
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, the word
of the Lord came unto John, the son of Zacharias (zyz-
VSTO g^a sou IT/ 'lcodvvv)v) and on the eighth day,
Zacharias, his father, was filled with the Holy Ghost,
and prophesied, saying, . . . , 7
So then we ought not to imagine that the divine in-
fallibility of the language of the prophets (and even of
the apostles), lasted longer than the times in which they
were engaged in their miraculous task, and in which
the Spirit caused them to speak. Without divine in-
spiration, they were in most instances enlightened,
sanctified, and preserved by God, as holy and faithful
men in our own days may still be ; but then they no
more spoke as moved by the Holy Ghost ; " their lan-
guage might still be worthy of the most respectful at-
i 2 Tim. iv. 20; Philip, ii. 27; 1 Tim. v. 23.
a Eph. iii. 4, 5. iv. 11; Bom. xvi. 25-27.
Acts ii. 4. * 2 Peter i. 21.
Ezek. xxix. 1, and elsewhere. " Luke iii. 1, 2.
* Luke i. 59, 67, 41, 42.
PROPHETS FALLIBLE WHEN UNINSPIRED.
tention ; but it was a holy man that spoke ; it was no
longer God : they again became fallible."
XIII. Can any examples be adduced of this fallibility
being attached to their language, when unaccompanied
with Divine inspiration ?
A multitude of instances occur. Men are often, after
having been for a time the mouth of the Lord, seen to
become false prophets, and mendaciously to pretend to
utter the words of Jehovah, after the Spirit had ceased
to speak in them ; " although the Lord sent them not,
neither commanded them, neither spake unto them."
" They speak a vision of their own heart, not out of
the mouth of the Lord." 1
But without referring to those wicked men, or to the
profane Saul, or to Balaam, who were for some time
numbered among the prophets, shall it be thought that
all the words of king David were infallible during the
course of that long year which he passed in adultery ?
Yet " these," saith the Scripture, " be the last words
of David, the sweet psalmist of Israel : THE SPIRIT OF
THE LORD SPAKE BY ME, AND HIS WoRD WAS IN MY
TONGUE." 2 Shall it be thought that all the words of
the prophet Solomon still continued infallible, when he
fell into idolatry in his old age, and the salvation of his
soul became a problem for the Church of God ? And
to come down to Christ's holy apostles and prophets
(Eph. iii. 5), shall it be thought that all the words of
Paul himself were infallible, and that he still could say
that " Christ spoke by him" 8 when there was a sharp
contention (Ta|o^ycr/^^) betwixt him and Barnabas; 4
or when, in the midst of the council, under a mistaken
impression with regard to the person of the High Priest,
he " spoke evil of the Ruler of his people," and cried,
" God shall strike thee, thou whited wall ; " or further
(since there may remain some doubt as to the character
of this reprimand), shall it be thought that all the words
1 Jer. xiv. 14, xxiii. 11, 16; Ezek. xiii. 2, 3.
2 2 Sam. xxiii. 1, 2. 8 2 Cw xiii. 3. Acts xy. 39.
116 ILLUMINATION NOT INSPIRATION.
of the apostle St Peter were infallible, when, at Antioch,
he showed himself " so much to be blamed" (Kurtyvcati-
p'svog)', when he feared those that came from St James;
when he dissembled ; and when he forced the apostle
St Paul " to withstand him to his face before them nil,
because he walked not uprightly according to the truth
of the gospel (OVA fiv 6g0o i /ro^<rag) ?" x
XIY. What, then, are we to conclude from this first
difference which, we have recognised as existing between
illumination and inspiration, with respect to the dura-
tion of those gifts ?
We must conclude from it,
1. That these two operations of the Holy Ghost differ
in their essence, and not in their degree only.
2. That the infallibility of the sacred writers depended
not on their illumination (which, although raised to an
extraordinary measure in the case of some of them, they
nevertheless enjoyed in common with r all the saints),
but solely on their divine inspiration.
3. That divinely-inspired words, having been mira-
culous, are also all of them the words of God.
4. That as our faith in every part of the Bible rests
no longer on the illumination of the writers, but on the
inspiration of their writings, it may dispense henceforth
with the perplexing study of their internal state, of the
degree in which they were enlightened, or of that of
their holiness; but must stay itself in all things on God,
in. nothing on man.
XV. If such have been the difference between illu-
mination and inspiration in the prophets and the apostles,
as respects the duration of those gifts, what has it been
as respects their measure ?
Illumination is susceptible- of degrees; inspiration
does not admit of them. A prophet is more or less
enlightened by God; but what he says is not nore 01
i See GaL ii. 11, r 4.
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT. 11?
less inspired. It is so, or it is not so ; it is from God,
or it is not from God; here there is neither measure nor
degree, neither increase nor diminution. David was
enlightened by God; John Baptist more than David; a
simple Christian possibly more than John Baptist; an
apostle was more enlightened than that Christian, and
Jesus Christ more than that apostle. But the inspired
word of David, what do I say? the inspired word of
Balaam himself is that of God, as was that of John
Baptist, as was that of St Paul, as was that of Jesus
Christ! IT is THE. WORD OF GOD. The most en-
lightened of the saints cannot speak hy inspiration,
whilst the most wicked, the most ignorant, and the most
impure of men, may speak not of his own will (dp' savrov
WK siittfv), hut hy inspiration (dXXo; ffgopijT-euffa;.) 1
In a man who is truly regenerated, there is always
the divine spirit and the human spirit, which operate
at once the one enlightening, the other darkening ;
and the illumination will be so much the greater, the
more that of the divine Spirit surpasses that of the
human spirit. In the prophets, and, above all, in the
apostles, these two elements also are to be found. But,
thanks be to God, our faith in the words of Scripture
nowise depends on the unknown issue of that combat
which was waged between the Spirit and the flesh in
the soul of the sacred writers. Our faith goes directly
to the heart of God.
XVI. Can much harm result from the doctrine ac-
cording to which the language of inspiration would be
no more than the human expression of a superhuman
revelation, and, so to speak, of a natural reflection of a
supernatural illumination ?
One or other of two evils will always result from it ;
either the oracles of God will be brought down to the
level of the words of the saints, or these last will be
raised to the level of the Scriptures.
l Johnxi. 51.
118 INSPIRATION CONFOUNDED WITH ILLUMINATION.
This is a deplorable consequence, the alternative in-
volved in which has been reproduced in all ages. It
became unavoidable.
All truly regenerated men being enlightened by the
Holy Ghost, it would follow, according to this doctrine,
that they would all possess, though in different degrees,
the element of inspiration ; so that, according to the ar-
bitrary idea which you would form to yourselves of their
spiritual condition, you would be led inevitably sometimes
to assimilate the sacred writers to them, sometimes to
raise them to the rank of writers inspired from above.
XVII. Might religious societies be mentioned in
which the former of these two evils is realized ; I mean
to say, where people have been led, by this path, to
lower the Scriptures to the level of the sayings of saints ?
All the systems of the Protestant doctors who assume
that there is some mixture of error in the Holy Scrip-
tures, are based on this doctrine ; from Semler and
Ammon to Eichhorn, Paulus, Gabler, Schuster, and
Restig ; from M. de Wette to the more respectable sys-
tems of Michaelis, Rosehmiiller, Scaliger, Capellus,
John le Clerc, or of Yossius. According to these
theories, the divine light with which the intellects of
the sacred writers was enlightened, might suffer some
partial eclipses, through the inevitable effect of their
natural infirmities, of a defect of memory, of innocent
ignorance, of popular prejudice ; so that traces of these
have remained in their writings, and so that we can
perceive in these where their shadows have fallen.
XVIII. Might religious societies be mentioned also,
where the latter of these evils has been consummated ;
I mean to say, where, in consequence of having been
willing to confound inspiration with illumination, saints
and doctors have been elevated to the rank of divinely
inspired men ?
Of these, two in particular may be mentioned, the
Jews and the Latins.
JEWISH RESPECT FOB THEIR DOCTORS. 119
XIX. What have the Jews done ?
They have considered the rabbins of the successive
ages of the Dispersion as endowed with an infallibility
which put them on a level with (if not above) Moses
and the prophets. They have, to be sure, attributed a
kind of divine inspiration to holy Scripture; but they
have prohibited the explanation of its oracles otherwise
than according to their traditions. They have called
the immense body of those commandments of men the
oral law (rsz Vsata n^-,n), the Doctrine, or the Talmud
(-!V2?p), distinguishing it into the Miahna^ or Second
Law (TOfflfc), and Gemara, complement or perfection
(s-j). They have said that it passed from God to
Moses, from Moses to Joshua, from Joshua to the pro-
phets, from the prophets to Esdras, from Esdras to the
doctors of the great synagogue, and from them to the
rabbins Antigone, Soccho, Shemaia, Hillel, Schammai,
until at last Juda the saint deposited it in the traditions
or repetitions of the law (m-ron, Sevrig(Jdffei$\ which
afterwards, with their commentary or complement (the
gtinara), formed, first, the Talmud of Jerusalem, and
afterwards that of Babylon.
" One of the greatest obstacles that we have to en-
counter in dealing with the Jews," says the missionary
MacCaul, " is their invincible prejudice in favour of
their traditions and of their commentaries, so that we
cannot prevail on them to buy our Bibles without notes
or commentaries." x
" The law they say is salt ; the mishna, pepper ; the
talmuds, aromatics : " " the Scripture is water ; the mish-
na, wine ; the gemara, spiced wine." " My son," says
rabbi Isaac, " learn to pay more attention to the words
of the scribes than to the words of the law." " Turn
away your children" (said rabbi Eleazar, on his death-
bed, to his scholars, who asked him the way of life),
w turn away your children from the study of the Bible,
and place them at the feet of the wise." " Learn, my
1 Letter from Warsaw, 22d March 1827.
12
1 20 FATAL RESULT OF WRONG PRINCIPLES.
son," says the rabbi Jacob, " that the- words of the
scribes are more agreeable than those of the prophets!" l
XX. And what has been the result of these mon-
strous principles ?
It is, that by this means millions and millions of im-
mortal souls, although wandering upon the earth, .al-
though weary and heavy laden, although every where
despised and persecuted, have contrived to carry the
book of the Old Testament, intact and complete, among
all the nations of the whole world, without ceasing to
read it in Hebrew every Sabbath, in thousands of syna-
gogues, for the last eighteen hundred .years, ....
without, notwithstanding all this, recognising there that
Jewish Messiah whom we all adore, and the knowledge
of whom would be at this day their deliverance, as it
behoves one day to be their happiness and their glory!
" Full well," said Jesus to them, " full well ye reject
the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own
tradition." 2
XXI. And what have the Latins done ?
They have considered the fathers, the popes, and the
councils of the successive ages of the Roman Church, as
endowed with an infallibility which puts them on a level
with Jesus, the prophets, and the apostles, if not above
them. They have differed greatly, it is true, from each
other on the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scrip-
tures ; and the faculties of Douay and Louvain, for ex-
ample, have vigorously opposed 8 the opinion of the- Je-
suits, who would see nothing in the operation of the
1 In the Talmud of Jerusalem Encycl. Method, at the word Juifs.
3 Mark vii. 9, see also xiii. and Matt. XT. 3-9. The mischief of
those traditions begins at last to reveal itself to the Jews of our
days : " The time is come," says the Israelite doctor Creissenach
(Entwictelungs Geschichte des Mosaischen Ritual Gesetzes, Pref.),
" the time is come when the Talmud -will precipitate the Jewish reli-
gion into the most profound and humiliating downfall, if all the
popular teachers of the Jews do not loudly declare that its statutes
are of human origin, and may be changed."
8 Censure of 1588.
ERBOBS OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. 121
Holy Ghost but a direction preserving the sacred writers
from error ; but all hare forbidden the explanation of
the Scriptures otherwise than by their traditions. 1 They
have thought themselves entitled to say, in all their
councils, as did the apostles and prophets at Jerusalem,
" It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us."
They have declared that it appertained to them to pro-
nounce upon the true meaning of holy Scripture. They
have called the immense body of those commandments
of men, the oral Iaw> > the unwritten traditions, the un-
written law. They have said that they have been trans-
mitted by God, and dictated by the mouth of Jesus
Christ, or of the Holy Ghost, by a continual succession.
" Seeing," says the Council of Trent, 2 "that the
saving truth and discipline of manners are contained in
the written books and the unwritten traditions, which,
having been received by the apostles from the mouth
of Jesus Christ, or from lihe inspiration of the Holy
Ghost, by succession of 'time are come down to us y
following the example of the apostolic fathers, the
Council receives with the same affection and reverence
(pari pietatis et reverentice affectu\ and honours all the
books of the Old and New Testament (seeing that God
is their author), and together with them the TRADITIONS
relating to faith as well as manners, as having been dic-
tated by the mouth of Jesus Christ or of the Holy
Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church by con-
tinual succession." " If any one receive not the whole
of the said books, with all their parts, as holy and ca-
nonical as they have been wont to be read in the Ca-
tholic Church, and in the old vulgate translation " (that
of Jerome, 8 which, especially in Job and the Psalms, is
1 Council of Trent, session 4, 2d decree of 28th April 1546. Bel-
larmin. De Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 14; lib. iv. cap. 3, 5, 6, 7, 8. Coton,
lib. ii. cap. 24, 34, 35. De Perron contre Tilenus.
2 Council of Trent, first decree, session 4.
3 It was in vain that the Abbot Isidore Clarius represented at the
Council that there was temerity in ascribing inspiration to a writer
who himself assures us that he had none (Father Paul, Hist, of the
Council of Trent, p. 148 of Edition London, 1676).
122 BULL EXSURGE BULL UNIGENITUS.
crammed with very numerous, very serious, and very
evident errors, and has even been corrected abundantly
since by other popes), 1 " or knowingly despises the said
traditions, let him be accursed!"
They have thus put the bulls of the bishops of Rome,
and the decrees of their synods, above the Scriptures.
" Holy Scripture," say they, " does not contain all that
is necessary for salvation, and is not sufficient." 2 " It
is obscure." 8 " It does not belong to the people to read
Holy Scripture." * " We must receive with obedience of
faith many things that are not contained in Scripture." 8
" We must serve God according to the tradition of the
ancients." 6
The bull Exsurge of Leo X. 7 places in the number of
Luther's heresies his having said, " That it is not in the
power of the Church, or of the Pope, to establish ar-
ticles of faith."
The bull Unigenitits 6 condemns to perpetuity, as being
respectively false, captious, scandalous, pernicious, rash,
suspected of heresy, savouring of heresy, heretical, im-
pious, blasphemous, &c., the following propositions :
" It is profitable at all times, in all places, and for all
sorts of persons, to study the Scriptures, and to become
acquainted with their spirit, piety, and mysteries," (on
1 Cor. xvi. 5.) 9 " The reading of Holy Scripture in the
hands of a man of business, and a financier, shows that
it is intended for every body," (on Acts viii. 28.) 10
" The holy obscurity of the Word of God is no ground
for the laity's being dispensed from reading it," (on
1 See Thomas James, Bellum Papale sive Concordia Discors Sexti
V. et dementis VIII. 2 Bellarmin. De Verbo Dei, lib. iv.
3 Idem, lib. iii. Charron, Verite 3. Coton, lib. ii. cap. 19.
Bayle, traite.
4 Bellarmiii. De Verbo Dei, lib. ii. cap. 19.
4 Bellarmin. lib. iv. cap. 3, and De Perron contre Tilenus. Coton,
lib. ii. cap. 24.
6 Id. Bellarmin. lib. iv. cap. 5. Coton, lib. ii. cap. 34, 35.
Council of Trent, sess. 4.
7 1520, Concil., Harduini, t. ix. p. 1893.
B Clement XL of 8th September 1713.
8 Proposition 79. 10 Proposition 80.
ENCYCLICAL EPISTLE OP POPE LEO XII. 1 23
Acts viii. 30, 31.) " The Lord's day ought to be sancti-
fied by the reading of books of piety, and especially of
the Scriptures. They are the milk which- God himself,
who knows our hearts, has supplied for them. It is
dangerous to desire being weaned from it." (Acts xv.
29. " It is a mistake to imagine that the knowledge
of the mysteries of religion ought not to be communi-
cated to that sex (women) by the reading of the holy
books, after this example of confidence with which Jesus
Christ manifests himself to this woman (the Samari-
tan)." " It is not from the simplicity of women, but
from the proud learning of men, that abuse of the Scrip-
tures has arisen, and heresies have been generated."
(John iv. 26.) " It amounts to shutting the mouth of
Christ to Christians, and to wresting from their hands
the holy book, or to keep it shut to them by depriving
them of the means of hearing it." (1 Thess. v. 2.) " To
interdict Christians from reading it, is to interdict chil-
dren from the use of light, and to subject them to a
kind of excommunication," (on Luke xi. S3.) 1
Still more lately, in 1824, the encyclical epistle of
Pope Leo XII. mournfully complains of the Bible So-
.cieties, " which," it says, " violate the traditions of the
fathers (! ! !) and the Council of Trent, by circulating the
Scriptures in the vernacular tongues of all nations."
(" Non vos latet) venerandi fratres, societatem quamdam^
dictam vulgo BIBLICAM, per totum orbem audacter va-
gari quae spretis S. S. Patrum traditionibus (///) et
contra notissimum Tridentini Concilii decretum in id
collatis viribus ac modis omnibus intendit, ut in vulgares
linguas nationum omnium sacra vertantur vel potivs
pervertantur Biblia") " In order to avert this pest,"
he says, " our predecessors have published several con-
stitutions, . . . tending to show how pernicious for the
faith and for morals this perfidious institution (the
Bible Society) is! (ut ostendatur quantopere fidei et
raoribus vaferrimum hocce inventum noxium sit !)''
1 Exod. xx. 4, 5.
1 24 FATAL RESULT OF COUNCIL OF TRENT'S DECREES.
XXII. And what has been the result of these mon-
strous principles ?
It is this,, that millions and millions of immortal
souls in France, in Spain, in Italy, in Germany, and in
America, and even in the Indies, although they carry
every where intact and complete the New Testament,
although they have not ceased to read it in Latin, every
Lord's day, in thousands and thousands of churches, for
twelve hundred years, .... have been turned a\vay
from the fountains of life, have, like the Jews, " paid
more attention to the words of the scribes than to those
of the law; " have diverted their children, according to
the counsel of Eleazer, " from the study of the Bible,
to place them at the feet of the wise." They have found,
like rabbi Jacob, " the words of the scribes more agree-
able than those of the prophets." It is thus that they
have contrived, for twelve centuries, to maintain doc-
trines the most contrary to the Word of God, 1 on the
worship of images; 2 on the exaltation of the priests; on
their forced celibacy ; on their auricular confession ; on
the absolution which they dare to give ; on the magical
power which they attribute even to the most impure
among them, of creating his God with three Latin words,.
opera operate ; on an ecclesiastical priesthood, of which
Scripture has never said a word ; on prayers to the dead ;
on the spiritual pre-eminence of the city which the
Scripture has called Babylon ; on the use of an unknown
tongue in worship ; on the celestial empire of the
blessed but humble woman to whom Jesus himself said,
" Woman, what have I to do with thee ? " on the mass;
on the taking away of the cup; on the interdiction of
the Scriptures to the people; on indulgences; on pur-
gatory; on the universal episcopate of an Italian priest;
on the interdiction of meals ; so that just as people
' Expd. xx. 4. 5.
2 Quisquia elanguerit erga venerabilium imaginura adorationem
(r(oirxvti<rit), hunc anathemizat sancta nostra et universalis synodus!
(was written to the Emperor, in the name of the whole Second
Council of Nice). (Concil., torn. vii. p. 585).
IMPULSION AND SUGGESTION. 125
annul the sole priesthood of the Son of man by esta-
blishing other priesthoods by thousands, just as they
annul his divinity by acknowledging thousands of demi-
gods or dead men, present in all places, hearing
throughout the whole earth the most secret prayers of
human beings, protecting cities and kingdoms, "working
miracles in favour of their worshippers; . . . just so,
also, they annul the inspiration of Scripture, by acknow-
ledging by thousands other writings which share in its
divine authority, and which surpass and swallow up its
eternal infallibility !
It was in opposition to the very similar tenets main-
tained by the heretics of his time, that Saint Irenaeus
said, " For when convicted by the Scriptures, they turn
about and accuse the Scriptures themselves, as if they
were imperfect, and wanting in authority, and uncertain,
and as if one could not find the truth in them, if ig-
norant of tradition ; for that was given, not in writing,
but by the living voice." 1
" Full well, " says Jesus to them too, " ye reject the
commandments of God, that ye may keep your own
traditions! Bene irritum facitis prceceplum Dei, ut tra-
ditionem vestram servetis!" (Mark vii. 9.)
XXIII. Without pretending anyhow to explain how
the Holy Ghost could dictate the thoughts and the
words of the Scriptures (for the knowledge of this mys-
tery is neither given to us, nor asked of us), what is it
that one can perceive in this divine action ?
Why, two things; first, an impulsion, that is, an ac-
tion on the will of the men of God, in order to make
them speak and write ; and, secondly, a suggestion, that
is to say, an action on their understandings and on their
organs, in order to their producing, first, witnin them
1 Adv. Hseres., lib. iii. cap. 2. " Cum enim ex Scripturis arguun-
tur, in accusationem convertuntur ipsarum Scripturarum, quasi MOD
recte habeant, neque smt ex auctoritate, et quia yarie sunt dictae, ct
quia non possit ex hisinveniriveritas abhisquinesciant traditioium
Non enim per lifcteras traditam illam, sed per vivam vocom."
126 OBJECTIONS STATED AND ANSWERED.
more or less exalted notions of the truth they were
about to utter; and, then, without them such human
expressions as were most divinely suitable to the eternal
thought of the Holy Ghost.
XXIV. Meanwhile, must it be admitted that the
sacred writers were no more than merely the pens,
hands, and secretaries of the Holy Ghost?
They were, no doubt, hands, secretaries, and pens ;
but they were, in almost every case, and in very dif-
ferent degrees, living pens, intelligent hands, secretaries
docile, affected by what they wrote, and sanctified.
XXV. Was not the Word of God, however, often
written as suggested by the occasion ?
Yes, no doubt : and the occasion was prepared by God,
just as the writer was. " The Holy Ghost," says Claude, 1
" employed the pen of the evangelists . . . and of the pro-
phets. He supplied them with the occasions on which
they wrote ; he gave them the wish and the strength to
do so ; the matter, form, order, economy, expressions,
are from his immediate inspiration and direction."
XXVI. But do we not clearly recognise, in the
greater part of the sacred books, the individual cha
racter of the person who writes ?
Far from disowning this, we, on the contrary, ad-
mire its being so. The individual character which
comes from God, and not from sin and the fall, was
prepared and sanctified by God for the work to which
it had been destined by God.
XXVII. Ought we, then, to think that all has been
equally inspired of God, in each of the books of Holy
Scripture ?
Scripture, in speaking of what it is, does not admit
any distinction. All these sacred books, without ex-
Claude. (Euyres Posthumes, vol. iv. p. 228
DOCTRINE OF THE JEWS IN CHRIST S TIME. 127
ception, are the word of the Lord. ALL SCRIPTURE,
says St Paul (-/raffa ygap^), is INSPIRED BY GOD.
This declaration, as we have already said, is sus-
ceptible of two constructions, according as we place the
verb, not expressed but understood, before or after the
Greek word which we here translate inspired by God;
both these constructions invincibly establish, that in
the apostle's idea, all without exception, in each and
all of the books of the Scriptures, is dictated by the
Spirit of God. In fact, in both the apostle equally
attests that these HOLY LETTERS (ra /sga yga^/iara),
of which he had been speaking to Timothy, are all
divinely inspired Scriptures.-
Now, we know that in the days of Jesus Christ, the
whole Church meant one SOLE AND THE SAME COLLEC-
TION OF BOOKS by the Scripture, the Holy Scripture, or
the Scriptures, or the Holy Letters, or the Law and
the Prophets, (ygap^, 1 or q ygapj] ay/a, 8 or a/ ygapa/', 3
or 6 v6[j,og x.ai 01 Trgop^ra;,* or ra /gga yga/a./iara 5 ).
These were the twenty -two sacred books which the
Jews held from their prophets, and on which they were
all perfectly agreed. 6
This entire and perfect divine inspiration of all the
Scriptures of the Jews was so fully, in the days of Jesus
Christ, the doctrine of the whole of that ancient people
of God (as it was that of Jesus Christ, of Timothy,
and of St Paul), that we find the following testimony
to it in the works of the Jewish general Josephus (who
had reached his thirtieth year 7 at the time when the
Apostle Paul wrote -his Second Epistle to Timothy).
" Never " (says he, in speaking of " the twenty-two
books" 8 of the Old Testament, which he calls ra ibio,
i 2 Peter i. 20; John x. 35, xvii. 12, xix. 37. 2 Rom. i. 2.
8 John v. 39; Matt. xxi. 42, xxvi. 54; Rom. XT. 4; 1 Cor. xv. 3.
* Acts xxiy. 14; Luke xvi. 16, 29, 31; Matt. v. 17, IS; John x. 34
6 2 Tim. iii. 15. 6 See Krebs and Lsesner, on 2 Tim. iii. 15
7 He was born in the year 37. See his Life, Edit. Aurelise Allobi
p. 999.
Contra Apion, lib. i. p. 1837. (Mtfuru. *$s m~f lixotri j8//3A/.) Ou,'
Bibles reckon thirty-nine books in the Old Testament; but Josephus
13
128 TESTIMONY OF JOSEPHUS.
as St Paul calls them here ra hga
" never, although many ages have elapsed, has
any one dared either to TAKE AWAY, or to ADD, or to
TRANSPOSE in these any thing whatever ;* for it is with
all the Jews, as it were an inborn conviction (IIA2I ds
Gv/j,pvr6v lffr;v), from their very earliest infancy, 2 to call
them GOD'S TEACHINGS, to abide in them, and, if neces-
sary, to die joyfully in maintaining them." 3
" They are given to us" (he says further) " by the
inspiration that comes from God (xara rfjv sftfirvoiav
rqv a<7rl> rov sou) ; but as for the other books, com-
posed since the times of Artaxerxes, they are not thought
worthy of a like faith." * .....
These passages from Josephus are not quoted here
as an authority for our faith, but as an historical testi-
mony, showing the sense in which the apostle St Paul
spoke, and attesting to us that, in mentioning the holy
letters (r hga yga/i/etara), and in saying that they are
all divinely inspired Scriptures, he meant to declare to
us that, in his eyes, there was nothing in the sacred
books which was not dictated by God.
Now, since the books of the New Testament are hga
~/ga/j,/j,ara, Holy Scriptures, the Scriptures, the Holy
Letters, as well as those of the Old ; since the apostles
have put their writings, and since St Peter, for example,
has put ALL THE LETTERS OF PAUL (Tarfag rag J-TT/tf-
roXas) in the same rank with the REST OF THE SCRIP-
TURES (us -/.at rag Xo/ffag TPA<E>A2), hence we ought
to conclude that all is inspired by God in all the books
of the Old and New Testament.
and the ancient Jews, by making one book each of the two books of
Samuel, of Kings, and of Chronicles, by throwing together Ruth
and Judges, Esdras and Nehemiah, Jeremiah and Lamentations, and
finally, Hosea and the eleven minor prophets that folkw respec-
tively, into one book, reduced our modern calculation of their sacred
books by seventeen units.
1 n Ou HPO20EINAI vis mi&i can A*EAEIN airS, OUTI METAOEI-
NAI riTaXjuijxo.
- EuBuf ix -mi -rfums ytnirius o'vo.ua&'v iwri 9EOT AOFMATA (accord
'ng to others: _;?-o?n, tliejirst yentration.)
3 "Tielf tuTuy ii Slot &tf,rM ySeui. 4 Tlttrnus $1 ow" 61*010.1 rfcitmu.
THE BIBLE TESTIFIES TO ITSELF. 129
XXVIII. But if all the sacred books (ra, isga yga/u,-
7-ara) are divinely inspired, how can we discover that
such and such a book is a sacred book, and that such
another is not one ?
This, in a great measure, is a purely historical question.
XXIX. Yet, have not the Reformed Churches main-
tained that it was by the Holy Ghost that they recog-
nised the divinity of the sacred books ; and, for exam-
ple, has not the Confession of Faith of the Churches of
France said in its 4th article, that we know these books
to be canonical, and a very certain rule of our faith,
not so much by the common accord and agreement of
the Church, as by the testimony and the persuasion of
the Holy Ghost, which enables us to discern between
them and the other ecclesiastical books ?
This maxim is perfectly true, if you apply it to the
sacred books as a whole. In that sense the Bible is
evidently an uvroffiaros book, which needs itself only
in order to be believed. To the man, whoever he be,
that studies it " with sincerity and as before God," 1 it
presents itself evidently, and of itself, as a miraculous
book; it reveals all that is hidden in men's consciences; it
discerns the thoughts and affections of the heart. It has
foretold the future; it has changed the face of the world;
it has converted souls ; it has created the Church. Thua
it produces in men's hearts " an inward testimony and
conviction of the Holy Ghost," which attests its inimi-
table divinity, independently of any testimony of men.
But we do not think that our Churches ever ventured
to affirm that one might be content to abide by this
mark for discerning such or such a book, or such ot
such a chapter, or such or such a verse of the "Word of
God, and for ascertaining its celestial origin. They
think that for this detail one must look, as they did,
" to the common accord and agreement of the Church/
We ought to admit as divine the entire code of the
2 Cor. ii 17.
1 30 OPINIONS OF LUTHER AND DR TWESTEN.
Scriptures, before each of its parts has enabled us to
prove by itself that it is of God. It does not belong to
us to judge this book; it is this book which will judge
us.
XXX. Nevertheless, has not Luther, 1 starting from
a principle laid down by St Paul 2 and by St John', 8
said, that " the touchstone by which one might recog-
nise certain scriptures as divine, is this : Do they
preach Christ or do they not preach him?"* And among
the moderns, has not Dr Twesten also said, " that the
different parts of the Scriptures are more or less in-
spired, according as they are more or less preaching;
and that inspiration does not extend to words and his-
torical matters beyond what has a relation to the Chris-
tian conscience, beyond what proceeds from Christ, or
serves to show us Christ." 6
Christ is, no doubt, the way, the truth, and the life ;
the spirit of prophecy, no doubt, is the testimony of
Jesus; 6 but this touchstone might in our hands prove
fallacious : 1st, Because many writings speak admirably
of Christ without being inspired ; 2d, Although all
that is to be found in the inspired Scriptures relates to
Jesus Christ, possibly we might, fail to perceive this
divine character at a first glance; and 3d, In fine, be-
cause we ought to BELIEVE BEFORE SEEING it, that all
Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for cor-
rection, and for instruction in righteousness : that the
man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto
all good works. 7
XXXI. What reasons have we, then, for recognis-
ing as sacred each of the books which, at the present
day, form for us the collection of the Scriptures ?
For the Old Testament we have the testimony of the
1 In his preface to the Epistles of James and Jude.
a 1 Cor. iii. 9 10. a l j o h n iv. 2.
* Ob sie Christum treiben, oder nicht.
6 Vorlesungen Viber die Dogmatik, 1829, 1. B. p. 421-429.
9 John xiv. 6. Apoc., xix. 10. 1 2 Tim, iii. 16.
THE OLD TESTAMENT COMMITTED TO THE JEWS. 131
Jewish Church ; and for the New Testament the testi-
mony of the Catholic Church.
XXXII. What must here he understood by the tes
timony of the Jewish Church ?
We must understand by it the common opinion of
all the Jews, Egyptian and Syrian, Asiatic and Euro-
pean, Sadducean and Pharisees, 1 ancient and modern,
good and had.
XXXIII. What reason have we to hold for divine,
the books of the Old Testament which the Church of
the Jews has given us as such ?
It is written, " that unto them were committed the
oracles of God j" 2 which means, that God in his wisdom
chose them for being, under the Almighty government
of his providence, sure depositories of his written word.
Jesus Christ received their sacred code, and we accept
of it as he did.
XXXIV. Shall our faith then depend upon the
Jews ?
The Jews often fell into idolatry ; they denied the
faith ; they slew their prophets ; they crucified the
King of kings ; since that .they have hardened their
hearts for near two thousand years ; they have filled
up the measure of their sins, and wrath " is come upon
them to the uttermost." 8 Nevertheless, to them were
committed the oracles of God. And albeit that these
oracles condemn them, albeit that the veil remains on.
their hearts when they read the Old Testament ; * albeit
they have for ages despised the Word of God, and wor-
shipped their Talmud ; they HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE not to
1 See Josephus agt. Appion, liv. i. p. 1037. Philo in Eichorn.
Joseph, in Nov. Repert., p. 239. De ^Egypticia Judaeis; cf. Eichorn-
Einleit ins A. T. R. I., 21, p. 73, 89, 91, 113, 114, 116. De Sad-
ducceis, 35, p. 95. And Semler (App. ad liberal., V. T. inter-
pret., p. 11.) Eichorn Alg. Bibl. der Bibl. Litterat. T. IV. p. 275,
276. 2 Rom. iii. 2.
a 1 Thess. ii. 16. 2 Cor. iii. 15.
132 FIDELITY OP THE JEWS TO THEIR TRUST.
give us the look of the Scriptures intact and complete ;
and the historian Josephus might still say of them
what he wrote eighteen hundred years ago : " After the
lapse of so many centuries (rosovrou yag atavog %br t
-ragufflxorog}, no one among the Jews has dared to
ADD or to TAKE AWAY, or to transpose any thing in the
sacred Scriptures." x
XXXV. What, then, have been the warranty, the
cause, and the means of this fidelity on the part of the
Jews ?
We shall reply to this question in hut a very few
words. Its warranty is to be found in the promises of
God ; its cause in the providence of God ; and its
means in the concurrence of the five following circum-
stances :
1. The religion of the Jews, which has carried their
respect for the very letter of Scriptures even to a su-
perstitious length.
2. The indefatigable labours of the Masorethes, who
so carefully guarded its purity, even to the slightest
accents.
3. The rivalry of the Judaical sects, none of which
would have sanctioned any want of faithfulness on the
part of the others.
4. The extraordinary dispersion of that people in all
countries long before the ruin of Jerusalem ; for " of
old time," says St James, 2 " Moses hath in every
(pagan) city them that preach him, being read in the
synagogues every Sabbath-day."
5. Finally, the innumerable copies of the sacred book
diffused among all nations.
XXXVI. And with respect to the New Testament,
what are we now to understand by the testimony of the
Catholic Church ?
By this we are to understand the universal agreement
See tWa quotation at question 27.
3 Acts xv. 21. Josephiis often attests the same fact.
THE NEW TESTAMENT HOW PRESERVED. 133
of the ancient and modern Churches, Asiatic and Euro-
pean, good and bad, which call on the name of Jesus
Christ ; that is to say, not only the faithful sects of the
blessed Reformation, but the Greek sect, the Arminiau
sects, the Syrian sect, the Roman sect, and perhaps we
might add the Unitarian sects. 1
XXXVII. Should our faith then be founded on the
Catholic Church?
All Churches have erred, or might have erred.
Many have denied the faith, persecuted Jesus Christ in
his members, denied his divinity, made his cross of none
effect, restored the worship of statues and graven images,
exalted the priests, shed the blood of the saints, inter-
dicted the use of the Scriptures to the people, committed
to the flames those of the faithful who desired to read
them in the vernacular tongue, have set up in the tem-
ple of God him who sits there as a God, have tram-
pled upon the Scriptures, worshipped traditions, warred
against God, and cast down the truth. Nevertheless,
the new oracles of God have been committed to them,
as those of the Old Testament were to the Jews. And
albeit these oracles condemn them ; albeit for ages
they have despised the Scriptures and almost adored
their traditions; they have NOT BEEN ABLE not to give us
the Book of the Scriptures of the New Testament intact
and complete ; and one may say of them, as Josephus
said of Jews, " After the lapse of so many ages, never
has any one in the Churches dared either to add or take
away any thing in the Holy Scriptures." They have
been compelled, in spite of themselves, to transmit them
to us in their integrity.
XXXVIII. Nevertheless has there not been in
1 Following the example of the Scripture, we believe we may
employ the word church as denoting, sometimes all that are enclosed
in the nets of the Gospel, sometimes only all that in these is pure
and living. And as for the word sect (aSpm, Acts xxiv. 14; xxvi. 5;
xxvhi. '22;, following the apostle's example, we employ it here nei-
ther in a good sense nor in a bad sense.
134 COUNCIL OF TRENT'S DOINGS.
Christendom one powerful sect, which for three hun-
dred years has introduced into the canon of the Scrip-
tures the Apocryphal Books, disavowed as they have
been by the Jews * (as even Pope St Gregory himselt
attests), 2 and rejected by the fathers of the ancient
Church 8 (as St Jerome attests) ?
This, it is true, is what was done for the Latin sect
by the fifty-three persons who composed, on the 8th of
April 1546, the famous Council of Trent, and who pre-
tended to be the representatives of the CHURCH UNIVER-
SAL OF JESUS CHRIST.* But they could do it for the
Old Testament only, which was entrusted to the Jews
and not to the Christians. Neither that Council, nor any
even of the most corrupt and idolatrous Churches, have
been able to add a single Apocryphal Book to the New
Testament. God has not permitted this, however
mischievous may have been their intentions. It is thus
that the Jews have been able to reject the New Testa-
ment, which was not committed to them ; while they
HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE to introduce a single book of
man into the Old Testament. God has never permitted
them to do so ; and, in particular, they have always ex-
cluded from it those which the fifty-three ecclesiastics
of Trent were daring enough to cause to be inserted
in it, in the name of the universal Church.
1 Joseph, agt. Ap. book I. 8. Euseb. H. E. lib. HI., c. ix. x.
2 Exposition of the Book of Job. See Father Paul's Hist, of the
C. of Trent, book ii. p. 143. (London, 1676.)
8 Origen (Euseb. H. E. lib. iv. c. 26). St Athanasius (Pascal
Epistle). St Hilary (Prolog, in Psalmos, p. 9. Paris, 1693.) St
Epiph. (Lardner, vol. iv. p. 312.) St Gregory Nazianzen (Carm.
33, Op. torn. ii. p. 98).
4 In prasf. ad libr. Regum; sive Prologo-galeato. (See Lard. vol. v.
p. 16-22). Judith, et Tobiae et Macchabasorum libros legit quidem
Ecclesia: sed eas inter canonicas Scripturas non recipit (Praefat. in
Libros Salom-Epist. 115). See also Symbolum Ruffini, torn. ix.
p. 186 (Paris, 1602). " Some thought it strange that five cardinals
and forty-eight bishops should so easily define the most principal
and important points of religion, never decided before, giving cano-
nical authority to books held for uncertain and apocryphal," &c.
Father Paul's Hist, of the C. of Trent, book ii. p. 153 (London, 1676).
Most were Italians. , -
WARRANTY, CATJSB, AND MEANS. 135
XXXIX. And what have been the warranty, the
cause, and the means of that fidelity, which the universal
Church has shown in transmitting to us the oracles of
God in the New Testament ?
To this question we shall reply but in a very few
words.
The warranty has lain -in the promises of God ; the
cause in the providence of God ; and the means prin-
cipally in the concurrence of the following circumstan-
ces :
1 . The religion of the ancient Christians, and their
extraordinary respect for the sacred texts ; a respect
shown on all occasions in their churches, 1 in their
councils, 2 in their oaths, 8 and even in their domestic
customs.*
2. The pains taken by learned men in different ages
to preserve the purity of the sacred text.
3. The many quotations made from Scripture by the
fathers of the Church.
4. The mutual jealousy of the sects into which the
Christian Church has been subdivided.
5. The versions made from the first ages in many
ancient tongues.
6. The number and abundant dissemination of manu-
scripts of the New Testament.
7. The dispersion of the new people of God as far
as the extremities of Asia, and to the farthest limits of
the west.
1 Plotius contra Manich., t. i. ; apud Wolf, anecd., p. 32 sq. I.
Ciampini Bom. vetera monum., i. p. 126 sq. All the Christian con-
gregations in the East, even the poorest, kept a collection of the
sacred books in their oratories. See Scholz Proleg.
2 Cyrill. Alex, in Apol. ad Theodos., imp. Act. Concil. ed. Mansi,
t. vi. col. 579, yii. col. 6, ix. col. 187, xii. col. 1009, 1052, al. Prohi-
tion, under pain of excommunication, against selling the sacred book
to druggists, or other merchants, who don't buy them to read (6th
Council, in Trullo. Can. 68).
a Corb. byz., i. p. 422, al.
4 See St Jerome, pref. on Job. S. Chrysost. Horn. 19, De Statuis.
Women, says he, are wont to suspend copies of the Gospels from
their children's necks. See the 68th canon of the VI. Coun. in
Trullo.
136 OBJECTIVE, SUBJECTIVE, INSTRUMENTAL CAUSES.
XL. Does it then result from these facts that the
authority of the Scriptures is founded for us, as Bellar-
min has said, on that of the Church ?
The doctors of Rome, it is true, have gone so far as
to say, that without the testimony of the Church the
Scripture has no more authority than Livy, the Alcoran,
or ^Esop's fables ;* and Bellarmin, horrified no doubt
at such impious opinions, Vould fain distinguish the au-
thority of the Church in itself, and with respect to us
(quoad se, et quoad nos). In this last sense, he says,
the Scripture has no authority except by the testimony
of the Church. Our answer will be very simple.
Every manifestation having three causes, an objec-
tive cause, a subjective cause, and an instrumental
cause, one may say also that the knowledge that we
receive of the authority of the Scriptures has, first of
all, for its objective cause, the Holy Bible itself, which
proves its divinity by its own beauty, and by its own
doings ; in the second place, for subjective or efiicient
cause, the Holy Ghost, 2 who confirms and seals to our
souls the testimony of God and in fine, in the third
place, for instrumental cause, the Church, not the Ro-
man, not the Greek, more ancient than the Roman, not
even the Syriac, more ancient than either, but the Uni-
versal Church.
The pious St Augustine expresses this triple cause,
in his book against the Epistle of Manicheus, called
Fundamenti. In speaking of the time at which he
was still a Manichean, he says : 8 " I should not have
1 Hosius contra Brentium, lib. iii. Eckius, de auth. Ecclesiae.
Bayli Tractat. i., Catech., 9. 12. Andradius, lib. iii. Defens. Cone.
Trident. Stapleton, adv. Wittaker, lib. i. c. 17.
* Isa. liv. 13, lix. 21.
8 Kvangelio non crederem (according to the African usago for
credidissem, as confession, lib. ii. c. 8 : Si tune amarem, for amavis-
tem) nisi me Ecclesiae commoveret (commovisaet) authoritas (ch. 5).
(This, besides, is very classical Latin : Non ego hoc ferrem, says
Horace, for lulissem, lib. iii. ode 14). Eos sequamur qui nos invi-
tant prius credere, quum nondum yalemus intueri, ut ipsa fide va-
lentiores facti, quod credimua intelligere mereamur, non jam homi-
nibus, sed ipso Deo intrinsecas mentem nostram firmante et illu-
minante (c. 14). Opera August., Paris, Mabillon, t. viii.
THE CHURCH A DEPOSITORY, NOT A JUDGE. 137
believed in the gospel had I not been drawn to it by
the authority of the Church ;" but he takes care to add :
" Let us follow those who invite us first to believe,
when we are not yet in a state to see : in order that,
being rendered more capable (valentiores) by faith itself,
we may deserve to comprehend what we believe. Then
it will no more be men, it will be God himself within
us, who will confirm our souls and illuminate them."
In this affair, then, the Church is a servant and not
a mistress ; a depositary and not a judge. She exer-
cises the office of a minister, not of a magistrate, mi-
nisterium non magisterium. 1 She delivers a testimony,
not a judicial sentence. She discerns the canon of the
Scriptures, she does not make it ; she has recognised
their authenticity, she has not given it. And as the
men of Sichem believed in Jesus Christ by means of
the impure but penitent woman who called them to
him, we say to the Church : " Now we believe, not
because of thy saying ; for we have heard him ourselves,
and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour
of the world." 2 We have believed, then, per earn, not
propter earn, through her means, not on her account.
"We found her on her knees ; she showed us her Master ;
we recognised him, and we knelt down along with her.
Were I to mingle in the rear of an imperial army, and
should I ask those around me to show me their prince,
they would do with respect to him, for me, what the
Church has done with regard to the Scriptures. They
would not call their regiment the ecumenical army;
above all, they would not say that the emperor has no
authority but what is derived from its testimony, whether
as it respected itself or with respect to iis ; whether
quoad se or quoad nos (to use Bellarmin's language).
The authority of the Scriptures is not founded, then,
on the authority of the Church : it is the Church that
is founded on the authority of the Scriptures.
1 Turretini, Theolotjia elenct., vol. i. loc 2, qusest. 6.
John ir. 42.
138 HERE AUTHENTICITY PROVES INSPIRATION.
XLI. If the authenticity of the Scriptures is proved
in a great measure by history, how is their inspiration
established ?
Solely by the Scriptures.
XLII. But is such an argument rational ? Does it
not involve a begging of the question, and the proving
of inspiration by inspiration ?
There would be a begging of the question here, if, in
order to prove that the Scriptures are inspired, we should
invoke their testimony while assuming them to be in-
spired. But we are far from adopting this process.
First of all, the Bible is viewed solely in the light of an
historical document, deserving our respect from its au-
thenticity, and by means of which one may know the
doctrine of Jesus Christ, nearly as one would learn that
of Socrates from the books of Plato, or that of Leibnitz
from the writings of Wolff. Now this document de-
clares to us, in all its pages, that the whole system of
the religion which it teaches, is founded on the grand
fact of a miraculous intervention of God in the revela-
tion of its history and its doctrines.
The learned Michaelis, who held such loose princi
pies on inspiration, himself declares that the inspiration
of the apostolic writings necessarily results from their
authenticity. There is no other alternative, says he ;
if what they relate is true, they are inspired ; if they
were not inspired, they would not be sincere ; but they
are sincere, therefore they are inspired.
There is nothing in such reasoning that can be thought
like a begging of the question.
XLIII. If it be by the Bible itself that we establish
the dogma of a certain inspiration in the sacred books,
by what can it be proved that that inspiration is uni-
versal, and that it extends to the minutest details of the
instructions they convey ?
If it be the Scriptures that tell us of their divine
inspiration, it is they too that will be able to inform us
INSPIRATION WHEN FIRST IMPUGNED. 139
in what divine inspiration consisted. In order to our
admitting their inspiration on their own sole testimony,
it should have sufficed for us to be assured that they
were authentic; but, in order to our admitting their
plenary inspiration, we shall have something more ; for
we shall then be able to invoke their testimony as
writings already admitted to be divine. It will.no
longer be authentic books only that say to ns, I am in-
spired ; but books, both authentic and inspired, will say
to us, I am so altogether. The Scriptures are inspired,
we affirm, because, being authentic and true, they say
of themselves that they are inspired ; but the Scriptures
are plenarily inspired, we also add, because, being in-
spired, they say that they are so entirely, and without
any exception.
Here, then, there is neither more nor less than a
doctrine which the Bible will teach us, as it teaches us
all the rest. And just as we believe, because it tells us
so, that Jesus Christ is God, and. that he became man ;
so also we believe that the Holy Ghost is God, and that
he dictated the whole of the Scriptures.
SECTION II.
ON THE ADVERSARIES AND DEFENDERS OF THE DOCTRINE,
XLIY. Who are the divines that have impugned
the doctrine of the divine inspiration ?
We have one general remark to make before enume-
rating them here, namely, that with the single excep-
tion of Theodore of Mopsuestia, that philosophical di-
vine whose numerous writings, so strongly tainted with
Pelagianism, were condemned for their Nestorianism
in the fifth oecumenical council (Constantinople, 553),
and whose principles on the divine inspiration were very
loose, with the exception, we say, of Theodore of Mop-
suestia, it has been found impossible to produce, in the
Jong course of the EIGHT FIRST CENTURIES OF CHRIS-
140 AGOBARD UNJUSTLY ACCUSED BY DUPIN.
TIANITY, a single doctor who has disowned the plenary
inspiration of the Scriptures, unless it be in the bosom
of the most violent heresies that have tormented the
Christian Church ; that is to say, among the Gnostics,
the Manicheans, the Anomeans, and the Mahometans.
St Jerome himself, who sometimes permitted himself,
while speaking of the style of certain parts of the sacred
books, to use a language whose temerity will be cen-
sured by all pious persons, 1 nevertheless maintains, even
for such passages, the entire inspiration of all the parts
of the sacred Scripture; 2 and in that he further sees,
under what he calls the grossness of the language and
the seeming absurdity of the reasonings, intentions on
the part of the Holy Spirit full of profound art and
wisdom. And if, transporting ourselves from the days
of St Jerome to four hundred years farther down, we
come to the celebrated Agobard, who is alleged by Dr
Du Pin to have been the first of the fathers of the
Church that abandoned the doctrine of a verbal inspi-
ration, 8 it is most unjustly, says Dr Rudelbach, that
sucb a charge has been brought against that bishop.
It is true, that in disputing with the Abbot Fredigise,*
touching the latitude to be allowed to Latin translators
of the sacred text, he maintains that the dignity of the
Word of God consists in the force of meaning, not in
the pomp of words ; but he took care to add, that the
authority of the apostles and the prophets remains in-
tact, and that no one is permitted to believe .that they
could have placed a letter otherwise than they have
done ; for their authority is stronger than heaven and
earth. 5
1 Qui soloecismos in verbis facit, qui non potest hyperbaton red-
dere, sententiamque concludere. (Comment, in epist. ad Titum.
lib. i. [ad cap. i. 1.] Et ad Ephes., lib. ii. [ad cap. Hi. 1.] See
also his Comment on the Ep. to the Galatians).
2 Proem, in Ep. ad Galat., lib. ii.
3 Du Pin, doctor of the Sorbonne. Prolegom. on the Bible, liv. L
1 Agobard, adv. Fredeg lib. c. 9-12.
* Rudelbach, Zeitschrift, 1st part, 1840. p. 48.
EARLY INPUGNERS OF DIVINE INSPIRATION. 14]
If, then, we would class, in the order of time, the
men who controverted the entire divine inspiration of
our sacred books, we must place :
In the 2d century, the Gnostics (Yalentine, Cerdo,
Marcio, his disciple, &c.ji They believed in two equal
principles, independent, contrary, and co-eternal; the one
good and the other bad ; the one the father of Jesus Christ,
and the other the author of the law; and, entertain-
ing this idea, they rejected the Pentateuch, at the same
time admitting no more of the New Testament than
the gospel of Luke, and part of Paul's epistles.
In the 3d century Manes or Manicheus, who, calling
himself the paraclete promised by Jesus Christ, corrected
the books of the Christians, and added his own.
In the 4th century, the Anomeans or Ultra- Arians
(for Arius himself held a more reserved language), who
maintained, with their leader JEtius, that the Son, a
created intelligence, unlike 1 to the Father, took to him-
self a human body without a human soul. They spoke
of the Scriptures with an irreverence tantamount to the
denial of their entire inspiration. " When pressed with
Scriptural reasons," says St Epiphanius, " they escape by
saying : That it was as a man that the apostle said those
things ;" or, " Why do you bring the Old Testament
against me?" And what does the holy bishop add?
" It was to be expected that those who denied the glory
of Christ, should deny still more that of the apostles." 2
In the 5th century, Theodore of Mopsuestia, chief of
the Antioch school, an able philosopher, and learned but
rash divine. AH that remains to us of his numerous
works, is some fragments only, preserved to us by other
authors. His books, as we have said, were condemned
(two hundred years after his death) at the Council of
Constantinople. There were quoted there, for example,
his writings against Appollinarius, in which he had
said that the book of Job is merely a poem derived
from a pagan source ; that Solomon had no doubt re-
1 'Ave/i<af : hence their name.
2 Epiphan., Advers. hser., LXX. vi. JEtii salutat. Confut. vi.
142 MEDIEVAL IMPUGNEBS OF DIVINE INSPIRATION.
ceived Xoyov yviafcuc, but not Xdyov eofpiag ; that the
Song of Songs is but a long and insignificant epithala-
mium, without any character prophetical, historical, or
scientific, and in the manner of the Symposion of Plato,
etc, etc. 1
In the 1th century, Mahomet (whose false religion is
nothing more than a heresy of Christianity, and who
speaks of Christ at least as honourably as most part of
theSocinianshave done,) Mahomet acknowledged, and
often quoted as inspired, the books of the Old and New
Testament ; but he said they had been corrupted, and,
like Manes, he added his own.
In the 12th and 13th centuries, as it would appear,
there sprang up and took a regular shape, first among the
Talmudist Jews, 2 the system of those modern doctors
who have thought fit to class the various passages of
holy Scripture under various orders of inspiration, and
to reduce the divine inspiration to more or less natural
proportions. It was under the double influence of the
Aristotelian philosophy, and of the theology of the
Talmud, that the Jews of the middle ages, differing much
in this from the ancient Jews, 2 imagined this theory.
That was the time of the Solomon Jarchis, the David
Kimchis, the Averroeses, the Aben-Ezras, the Joseph
Albos ; and above all of Moses Maimonides, that Spanish
Jew who has been called the eagle of the doctors.
Maimonides, borrowing the vague terms of the peripate-
tic philosophy, taught that prophecy is not an exclusive
product of the action of the Holy Ghost. Just, says he,
as, if the intellectus agens (the intellectual influence that
is in man) associate itself more intimately with reason,
there results from it the secta sapientum speculatorum ,
and as, if that agent operates more on the imagination,
there results from it the secta politicorum, legislatorum,
dimnatorum, et prcestigiatorum ; so also, . when this
1 Acta concilii Constantinop., ii. 65, 71, apud Harduin. Aeta
Concil., torn. iii. p. 87-89.
8 See Josephus agt. Apion. lib. i. c. 7, 8; and Philo, ed HaeacheL
p. 515, and p. 918.
LATER IMPUGNEBS OF DIVINE INSPIRATION. 1 43
superior principle exercises its action in a more perfect
manner on those two faculties of the soul at once, the
result is the secta prophetarum. Almost all the modern
Jewish doctors have adopted the ideas of Maimonides;
and there, also, seems to have originated Schleiermacher's
modern system of inspiration. It is in starting from
these principles that the doctors have admitted several
degrees of inspiration in the prophets. Of these,
Maimonides reckoned sometimes eight, sometimes
eleven. Joseph Albo reduced them to four, and Abar-
banel to three. They applied these distinctions of dif-
ferent degrees of .inspiration to the division of the Old
Testament into Law, Prophets, and HagiograpJia (mv>
Diaimai nnraa.) The kethubim, according to him, had
not received the prophetic spirit (ns'aJ hit), but only
the Holy Spirit (unpn hi"0, which, according to him,
was no more than a human faculty, by means of which
a man pronounced words of wisdom and holiness. 1
The modern German school of the adversaries of in-
spiration, seems accordingly to be a mere reproduction
of the theory of the rabbins of the 13th century, or a
borrowing from the Talmudist doctors of our own days.
In the 16th century, Socinus 2 and Castellio 8 main-
tained that the sacred writers sometimes show a failure
of memory, and might err on subjects of slight impor-
tance.
In the 17th century, three orders of adversaries, ac-
cording to the celebrated Turretine, 4 combated inspira-
tion. These were, besides the infidels properly so-called
\atheos et gentiles') : 1 . the fanatics (enthusiastce), who
charged Scripture with imperfection in order to exalt
their own particular revelations ; 2. those of the Pope's
sect (pontijicn}, who scrupled not, says he, to betray
the cause of Christianity by alleging the corruption of
the original text (fontium), in order to exalt their Vul-
1 Mosis Maimonides, More Nebuchim, part ii. c. 37, et 45. RQ.
ielbach (ut supra) p. 53.
* De Author. Script. * In Dialogis.
4 Theol, Elenct., loc. 2, qusest. 5.
14
144 LATER IMPTJGNERS OF DIVINE INSPIRATION.
gate translation ; 3. The rationalists of different classes
(libertini), who, without going out of the Church, un-
ceasingly attempted to shake the authority of the Scrip-
tures, by pointing to difficult passages and apparent
contradictions (a'/roga jca/ evavr/opawj).
In the latter half of the 18th century, this last class
of adversaries became very numerous in Germany.
Semler gave the first impulsion to what he called the
liberal interpretation of the Scriptures ; he rejected all
inspiration, denied all prophecy, and treated all miracle
as allegory and exaggeration. 1 Ammon, more lately,
laid down positive rules for this impious manner of ex-
plaining the miraculous facts. 3 The writings of a legion
of doctors no less daring, Paulus, Gabler, Schuster,
Restig, and many others, abound in practical applica-
tions of these principles. Eichhorn, more recently still,
has reduced into system the rationalist doctrine of
prophecy. 8 De "Wette, in his Preliminary Manual,
appears not to see any true prediction in the prophets,
and not to find any difference between those of Israel
and those of the Pagan nations, beyond the spirit of
morality and sincerity which characterises monotheism,
and which, says he, purified Hebrew prophecy, while it
was wanting to the seers among the pagans.* Hug, in
his Introduction to the New Testament Scriptures, 6 no-
where speaks of inspiration. Michaelis admits it for a
part of the Scriptures, and rejects it for the other. So
did John Leclerc in the last century. 6 Rosenmiiller is
still more wavering in his sentiments.
Of late years, however, there have been German di-"
1 Preface to Schulteiib's Compendium, on the Proverbs, by Vogel.
Halle, 1769, p. 5.
3 De interpret, narrationum mirabil. N. N. (at the beginning of hia
Ernesti.)
a Einleitung in das alte Testament; 4 edit., Gretting., 1824, torn.
.v. ]). 45.
4 Zweyte Verbesserte Auflage. Berlin 1822, p. 276. Lehrbuch,
Anmerkungen.
s Einleitung, &c., 2d edit. 1821.
6 Sentiments de quelques theologiens de Holland. Lett. XI. XII.
La Chamb., Traitd de la Religion, torn. iv. p. 159, and the following
TESTIMONY OP CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY. 145
vines more reverentially inclined, who have admitted dif-
ferent degrees of inspiration in the different parts of the
Scriptures ; by distinguishing the passages which do not
relate, say they, to salvation ; and making bold to see in
them, as Socinus and Castellio did of old, slips of
memory, and errors, on subjects which, in their eyes,
seemed of little importance.
Among the English, too, there have been seen, of late
years, persons otherwise respectable, who have allowed
themselves to range the sentences of God's Word under
different classes of inspiration.
XLV. Can many illustrious doctors of the Church be
mentioned as maintaining the plenary inspiration of the
Scriptures ?
It is the uniform doctrine of THE WHOLE CHURCH
down to the days of the Reformation.
" Hardly," says Rudelbach, " is there a single point
with regard to which there reigned, in the eight first
ages of the Church, a greater or more cordial unani-
mity." 1
To the reader who wishes to consult these testimonies
of history, we recommend the dissertation lately pub-
lished on this subject by the learned doctor of Glogau,
already mentioned. The author, commencing with a
review of the first eight hundred years of the Christian
era, establishes the following principles there, by very
numerous quotations from the Greek and Latin fa-
thers.
1 . The ancient Church, with one unanimous voice,
teaches that all the canonical writings of the Old and
New Testaments ARE GIVEN BY THE HOLY SPIRIT of
God ; and it is on this sole foundation (and indepen-
dently of the fragmentary information that human im-
ist irgend ein Punct, woruber im Alterthume eine gros-
sere und freudigere Einstimmigkeit herrschte. (Zeitschrift von
Rudelbach und Guerike, 1840, 1st vol. p. 1-47. Die lehre von dei
Inspiration der heiligen Schrift, mit Berucksicbtigung der neuesten
Untersuchungen daruber, von Scb.leiermacb.er, Twesten und Steu-
del.)
1 46 OPINIONS OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH.
perfection may acquire from them) that the Church
founded her faith on the perjgfition of the Scriptures.
2. The ancient Church, following out this first prin-
ciple, no less firmly maintains the INFALLIBILITY of the
Scriptures as their sufficiency (aurag/ee/av) and their
plenitude. She attributes to their sacred authors not
only axiopistia,) to wit, a fully deserved credibility,
but also autopislia, to wit, a right to be believed, inde-
pendently of their circumstances or of their personal
qualities, and on account of the infallible and celestial
authority which caused them to speak.
3. The ancient Church, viewing the whole Scripture
as an utterance, on the part of God, addressed to man,
and digtated by the Holy Ghost, has ever maintained
that there is NOTHING ERRONEOUS, nothing useless, no-
thing superfluous there ; and that in this divine work,
as in that of creation, one may always recognise, amid
the richest plenty, the greatest and the wisest economy.
Every word there will be found to have its object, its
point of view, its sphere of efficacy. " Nihil otiosum,
nee sine signo, neque sine argumento apud eum." (Ire-
nceus) ; irav ffifta ... sgya^oftivov TO eavTOV e'gyoi/. (Ori-
gen.') It is in vigorously establishing and defending
both these characters of the Scriptures, that the ancient
Church has shown the elevated and profound idea she
entertained of their divine inspiration.
4. The ancient Church has always maintained that
the doctrine of holy Scripture is the SAME THROUGHOUT,
and that the Spirit of the Lord gives utterance in every
part of it to one and the same testimony. She vigo-
rously opposed that science, falsely so called (1 Tim.
vi. 20), which even in the first ages of her history, had
taken a regular shape in the doctrines of the Gnostics,
and which, daring to impute imperfection to the Old
Testament, made it appear that there were contradic-
tions between one apostle and another apostle, where
there were really none.
5. The ancient Church thought that inspiration ought
chiefly to be viewed, it is true, as a passive state, but as
INSPIRATION NOT ECSTASY. 147
a state in "which the human faculties, FAB FROM BEING
EXTINGUISHED or set aside by the action of the Holy
Ghost, were exalted by his virtue, and filled with his
light. She has often compared the soul of the prophets
r.and of the apostles to " a stringed instrument, which the
iHoly Ghost put in motion, in order to draw out of it
the divine harmonies of life." (Athenagoras.Y *' "What
they had to do, was simply to submit themselves to the
powerful action of the Holy Ghost, so that, touched by
his celestial influence, the harp, though human, might
reveal to us the knowledge of the mysteries of heaven."
(Justin Martyr. Y But, in their view, this harp, en- 1
tirely passive as it was as respects the action of God,4
was the heart of a man, the soul of a man, the under-
standing of a man, renewed by the Holy Ghost, and
filled with divine life.
6. The ancient Church, while it maintained that there
was this continued action on the part of the Holy Ghost
in the composition of the Scriptures, strenuously re-
pelled the false notions which certain doctors, particu-
larly among the Montanists, sought to propagate re-
specting the activity of the Spirit of God, and the pas-
siveness of the spirit of man in divine inspiration ; as
if the prophet, ceasing to have the mastery of his senses,
had been in the state which the pagans attributed to
their sibyls (/ttov/ot or gxgrc&tfs/). While the Cataphry-
gians held that an inspired man, under the powerful
influence of the divine virtue, loses his senses (excidit
sensu, adumbratits, silicet^ virtute dimna),* the ancient
Church maintained, on the contrary, that the prophet
DOES NOT SPEAK IN A STATE OF ECSTASY (non loquitur
in exerdffei,)* and that one may distinguish by this trait
false prophets from the true. This was the doctrine
held by Qggen against Celsus (lib. vii. c. 4) ; as also
1 Legatio pro Christianis, c. 9.
2 Ad Graces coLortatio, c. 8.
8 Tertullian adv. Marcion. lib. iv. ch. 22.
4 Hieronym., Proem, in Nahum. Prasfat. in Habak. in Esaiam.
Epiphan. adv.. hsereses, lib. ii. H seres., 48, c. 3.
148 OPINIONS OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH.
of Miltiades, of Tertullian, of Epiphanius, of Chry
sogjtom, of Basil, and of Jerpme, against the Mon-
tanists.
7. The ancient Church in her endeavours, by means
of OTHER DEFINITIONS, which we shall not indicate here,
to give greater clearness to the idea of divine inspira-
tion, and to disentangle it from the difficulties with which
it was sometimes obscured, still further showed how
much she cherished this doctrine.
8. The ancient Church thought that if the name of
action on the part of God is to be applied to inspira-
f tion, it must be understood to extend TO AVORDS as well
v as to things.
9. The ancient Church, by her constant MODE OF
QUOTING the Scriptures, in order to the establishment
and defence of her doctrines ; by her manner, too, of
EXPOUNDING and COMMENTING on them ; and, in fine,
by the USE which she recommends all Christians, with-
out exception, to make of them as a privilege and a
duty; the ancient Church, by these three habitual
practices, shows, still more strongly, if it be possible,
than she could have done by direct declarations, how
f profoundly attached she was to the doctrine of a verbal
i inspiration.
And it is not only by her exposition of the Word
that the ancient Church shows us to what point she
held the entire inspiration of the Scriptures, as an in-
controvertible axiom; she will show you this still more
strongly, if you will follow her while she is engaged IN
RECONCILING THE apparent CONTRADICTIONS sometimes
presented by the Gospel narratives. After having
made an essay of some explanation, she does not insist
upon it ; but 'hastens to conclude, that whatever be its
validity, there necessarily exists some method of recon-
ciling those passages, and that the difficulty is only ap-
parent, because the cause of that difficulty lies in our
ignorance, and not in Scripture. " Whether it be so,
I or otherwise (she says with Julius Africanus), it matters
V not, the Gospel remains entirely true (rb p'zvrot
BUDELBACH AND 8T JEROME. 149
irdvrug K^qfavu) I 1 This is her invariable conclu-
sion as to the perfect solubility of all the difficulties
that one can present to her in the Word of God.
10. The ancient Church was so strongly attached to
the doctrine of the personality of the Holy Spirit, and
of his sovereign action in the composition of the whole
Scriptures, that she made no difficulty in admitting at
one and the same time the greatest variety and the
GREATEST LIBERTY in the phenomena, in the occasions,
in the persons, in the characters, and in all the external
circumstances, under the concurrence of which that
work of God was accomplished. At the same time
that she owned with St Paul, that in all the operations
of this Spirit, it is one and the self-same Spirit that
divideth to every man severally as he will (1 Cor. xii.
11), she equally admitted that in the work of divine in-
spiration, the divine causation was exercised amid a
large amount of liberty, as respects human manifesta-
tions. And be it carefully remarked, that you will
nowhere find, in the ancient Church, a certain class of
doctors adopting one of these points of view (that of
the divine causation and sovereignty), and another
class of doctors attaching themselves exclusively to an-
other (that of human personality, and of the diversity
of the writer's occasions, affections, intelligence, style.
and other circumstances). " If this were so," says
Rudelbach, " one might justly accuse us of having our-
selves forced the solution of the problem, instead of
faithfully exhibiting the views of the ancient Church."
But no ; on the contrary, you will often see one and
the same author exhibit, at once and without scruple,
both of these points of view : the action of God and the
personality of man. This is what we see, for example,
abundantly in Jerome, who, even when speaking of the
specialties of the sacred writers, never abandons the
idea of a word introduced by God into their minds.
1 In his letter to Aristides, on the agreement of the Gospels that
relate the two genealogies of Jesus Christ. (Euseb., Hist. Eccl.
150 OPINIONS OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH.
This we farther remark in Irenaeus, who, while he in-
sists more than any one else on the action of God in the
inspiration of the Scriptures,is the firstof the fathers of the
Church that relates in detail the personal circumstances
of the Evangelists. This is what you will find again in
St Augustine; this is what you will see even in the father
of Ecclesiastical History, Eusehius of Cassarea, who
gives so many details on the four authors of the Gos-
pels, and who, nevertheless, professes the most rigorous
principles on the plenary inspiration of the Canonical
Scriptures.
11. The ancient Church shows us more, completely
still, by two other traits, the idea she had formed of di-
vine inspiration, by the care she took, on the one hand,
TO FIX THE RELATIONS which the doctrine of divine in-
spiration bore to the doctrine of the gifts of grace ; and,
on the other, TO EXHIBIT THE PROOFS of inspiration.
In fine, although the ancient Church presents this
spontaneous (ungesuchte) and universal agreement in
the doctrine of inspiration, we must not imagine that
this great phenomenon is attached, as some have been
fain to say, to some particular system of theology, or
may be explained by that system. No more must we
regard this wonderful agreement as the germ of a theory
that was to establish it, at a later period in the Church.
No. The very assertions of an opposite opinion which,
from time to time, made themselves heard on the part
of the heretics of the first centuries, and the NATURE OF
THE REPLIES that were put forth by the ancient Church,
clearly demonstrate, on the contrary, that this doctrine
was deeply rooted in the Church's conscience. Every
time that the fathers, in defending any truth by passages
from Scripture, succeeded so far as to drive their adver-
saries into the impossibility of defending themselves,
otherwise than by denying the full inspiration of the
divine testimonies, the Church thought the question was
decided. The adversary was tried ; he had no more to
say for himself ; he denied the Scripture to be the Word
of God ! What more remained to be done, but to com-
HUMAN AUTHORITIES THAT MIGHT BE ADDUCED. 151
pel him to look his. own ill-favoured argument in the
face, and to say to him, See what you hare come to !
as one would hid a man who has disfigured himself, look
at himself in a glass ? And this the fathers did.
Such are facts of the case ; such is .the voice of the
Church.
We had at first hrought together, with the design of
giving them here, a long series of passages, taken first
from Irenaus, 1 Tertullian, 2 Cyprian, 8 Origen,* Chrysos-
tom, 8 Justin Martyr, 8 Epiphanius, 7 Augustine, 8 Atha-
nasius, 9 Hilary, 10 Basil the Great, 11 and Gregory the
Great," Gregory of Nyssa, 18 Theodoret, 1 * Cyril of
Alexandria; 16 then, the most revered fathers of after
centuries; and, finally, the most holy doctors of the
Reformation. 16 But we soon perceived that all these
names, were we to give them by themselves, would seem
nothing better than an idle appeal to the authority of
Advers. Hsereses, lib. ii. c. 47. Lib. iii. c. 11. Lib. iv. c. 34.
3 De anima, c. 28, Advers. Marcion. lib. iv. c. 22. De Praescript.
advers. hseret., c. 25. Advers. Hermog. c. 22.
3 De Opere et eleemos. p. 197-201. Adv. Quirin., Adv. Judaeoa,
prasfat.
4 Horn, xxxix. in Jerem. (quoted here ch. VI. sect. 1.) Homil. ii.
in cumd. ^cap. six. & 1.) Homil. xxv. in Matth. Ejusdem Philo-
calia, lib. rv. Commentar. in Matth. p. 227-428, (edit. Huefc.) Ho-
mil. xxvii. in Numer. in Levit., homil. v.
6 Homil. xlix. in Joan. Homil. xl., in Joan. v. Homil. ix., in
2 Tim. ir. Serm. 53, de utilit. lect. Script. Serm. 3, de Lazaro.
e Apol. i. c. 53, and 35, 50, 5\~. Dial. cont. Tryph., cap. 7. Ad
Graecos cohort., c. 8.
7 2vrqtMf Xyf rtfi firrux. De doctrin. Christi. lib. ii. c. 9. De
Pastor., cap. 2. Epist. xlii.
s Epist. xcvii. (ad Hieronym.) De imitate Ecclesise. c. iii. t. ix.,
p. 341. (Paris, 1694.)
9 Contra Gentes, t. i. p. 1. De Incarnat. Ohristi. (Parians 1627.)
w Ad Constant. Aug., p. 244. De Trinit. lib. 8. (Parisiis, 1652.)
Comment, in Isaiam, t. i. p. 379. (Ed. Bened.) Homil. xxix.
advera. calumniantes S. Trinit. In Ethicis regni xvi. Ixxx., cap. 22.
12 Moralia in Job, prsefat., c. i.
13 Dialog, de anima et resurrectione, t. i. edit. Graecolat. p. 639.
De cognit. Dei cit. ab. Euthymio in Panoplia, t. 8.
w Dial. i. "Arftrr. Dial. ii. 'Ariiyxvr. In Exod., Qu. xxri. In Gen.,
Quest, xlv.
15 Lib. vii. confc. Jul. Glaphyromm in Gen., lib. ii.
6 See Lardner, vol. ii, p. 172, 488, 475. Haldane, The Inspiration
of tlw Holy Scriptures, p. 167 to 176.
15
1 52 HUMAN AUTHORITIES THAT MIGHT BE ADDUCED.
men ; and were we to give them along with the passages
referred to, in full, we should run into an excessive
multiplication of words.
We shall proceed, therefore, with a careful examina-
tion of the difficulties and the systems that are opposed
to the doctrine of a plenary inspiration. Those difficul-
ties constitute what are objections, and those systems
what are rather evasions. The two next chapters we
shall devote to the study of both.
EXAMINATION OP OBJECTIONS. 153
CHAPTER IV.
EXAMINATION OF OBJECTIONS.
IT is objected that the fallibility of the translators of the
Bible, renders the infallibility of the original text illusory ;
that the fact of the apostles having availed themselves of
the merely human version made by the Seventy, renders
their divine inspiration more than questionable. Ob-
jections are grounded on the various readings presented
by different manuscripts, on the imperfections observed
in the reasonings and in the doctrines, and on errors
discovered in matters of fact. Objectors tell us that
the laws of nature, now better understood than formerly,
give the lie to certain representations of the sacred au-
thors. Finally, we are told to look to what objectors
are pleased to call the admissions made by St Paul. To
these difficulties we proceed to reply, taking them one
after another; and we can afterwards examine some of the
theories, by the help of which some have sought to rid
themselves of the doctrine of a plenary inspiration.
SECTION I.
THE TRANSLATIONS.
The first objection may be stated thus. It is some-
times said to us, You assert that the inspiration of the
Scriptures extended to the very words of the original
text ; but wherefore all this verbal exactness of the Holy
Word, seeing that, after all, the greater number of
Christians can make use of such versions only as are
1 54 FIRST OBJECTION IS NO OBJECTION.
more or less inexact ? Thus, then, the privilege of such
an inspiration is lost to the Church of modern times ;
for you will not venture to say that any translation is
inspired.
This is a difficulty which, on acount of its insignifi-
cance, we felt at first averse to noticing ; but we cannot
avoid doing so, being assured that it has obtained some
currency among us, and some credit also.
Our first remark on this objection must be, that it is
not one at all. It does not bear against thejuct of the
verbal inspiration of the Scriptures ; it only contests the
advantages of that inspiration. With regard to the
greater number of readers, it says, the benefit of such an
intervention on the part of God, would be lost ; because,
instead of the infallible words of the original, they never
can have better than the fallible words of a translation.
But no man is entitled to deny a fact, because he does
not at first perceive all the use that may be made of it ;
and no man is entitled to reject a doctrine for no better
-reason thau that he has not perceived its utility. All
the expressions, for example, and all the letters of the
Ten Commandments were certainly written by the finger
of God, from the aleph with which they commence, to
the caph with which they end ; yet, would any one
venture to say that the credibility of this miraculous
fact, is weakened by most unlettered readers, at the pre-
sent day, being under the necessity of reading the
Decalogue in some translation ? No one would dare to
say so. It must be acknowledged, then, that this ob-
jection, without directly attacking the dogma which we
defend, only questions its advantages : these, it tells us,
are lost to us, in the operation of translating from the
original, and in that metamorphosis disappear.
We proceed, then, to show how even this assertion,
when reduced to these last terms, rests on no good
foundation.
The divine word which the Bible reveals to us, passes
through four successive forms before reaching us in a
translation. First, it was from all eternity in the mind
DIFFERENCE OF ORIGINAL AND TRANSLATED TEXT. 1 55
of God. Next, it was passed by Him into the mind of
man. In the third place, under the operation of the
Holy Ghost, and by a mysterious process, it passed from
the prophets' thoughts, into the types and symbols of an
articulate language ; it took shape in words. Finally,
after having undergone this first translation, alike im-
portant and inexplicable, men have reproduced and
counter-chalked it, by a new translation, in passing it
from one human language into another human lan-
guage. Of these four operations, the three first are
divine ; the fourth alone is human and fallible. Shall it
be said, that because the last is human, the divinity of
the three former should be a matter of indifference to us?
Mark, however, that between the third and the fourth
I mean to say, between the first translation of the
thought by the sensible signs of a human language, and
the second translation of the words by other words the
difference is enormous. Between the doubts that may
cleave to us respecting the exactness of the versions,
and those with which we should be racked with respect
to the correctness of the original text (if not inspired
even in its language), the distance is infinite. It is said ;
of what consequence is it to me that the third operation
is effected by the Spirit of God, if the last be accom-
plished only by the spirit of man ? In other words,
what avails it to me that the primitive language be in-
spired, if the translated version be not so ? But people
forget, in speaking thus, that we are infinitely more
assured of the exactness of the translators, than we could
be of that of the original text, in the case of all the ex-
pressions not being given by God.
Of this, however, we may become perfectly convinced,
by attending to the five following considerations :
1 . The operation by which the sacred writers express
with words the mind of the Holy Ghost, is, we have
said, itself a rendering not of words by other words,
but of divine thoughts by sensible symbols. Now this
first translation is an infinitely nicer matter, more mys-
terious and more liable to error (if God puts not his
156 WHAT IS THE BEST TRANSLATION.
hand to it) than the operation can be afterwards, by
which we should render a Greek word of that primitive
text, by its equivalent in another tongue. In order to
a man's expressing exactly the thought of God, it is
necessary, if he be not guided in his language from
above, that he have thoroughly comprehended it in its
just, measure, and in the whole extent and depth of its
meaning. But this is by no means necessary in the
case of a mere translation. The divine thought being
already incarnated, as it were, in the language of the
sacred text, what remains to be done in translation is
no longer the giving of it a body, but only the changing
of its dress, making it say in French what it had already
said in Greek, and modestly substituting for each of its
words an equivalent word. Such an operation is compa-
ratively very inferior, very immaterial, without mystery,
and infinitely less subject to error than the preceding.
It even requires so little spirituality, that it may be
performed to perfection by a trustworthy pagan who
should possess in perfection a knowledge of both lan-
guages. The version of an accomplished rationalist
who desires to be no more than a translator, I could
better trust than that of an orthodox person and a saint,
who should paraphrase the text, and undertake to pre-
sent it to me more complete or more clear in his French
than he found it in the Greek or in the Hebrew of the
original. And let no one be surprised at this assertion;
it is justified by facts. Thus, is not De Wette's trans-
lation, among the Germans, preferred at the present
day to that even of the great Luther ? At least, is there
not greater confidence felt in having the miiid of the
Holy Ghost in the lines of the Basel professor than in
those of the great reformer; because the former has
always kept very close to the expressions of his text,
as a man of learning subject to the rules of philology
alone; while the latter seems at times to have momen-
tarily endeavoured after something more, and sought to
make himself interpreter as well as translator ? The
more, then, one reflects on this first consideration, the
GUARANTEES AGAINST ERRORS OF TRANSLATION, 1 57
more immeasurable ought the difference to appear
between these two orders of operations ; to wit, between
the translation of the divine thoughts into the words of
a human language, and the translation of the same
thoughts into the equivalent terms of another language.
No longer, therefore, be it said, " What avails it to me,
if the one be human, that the other is divine?"
2. A second character by which we perceive how
different these two operations must be, and by which
the making of our versions will be seen to be infinitely
less subject to the chances of error than the original
text (assuming that to be uninspired\ is, that while
the work required by our translations is done by a great
many men of every tongue and country, capable of de-
voting their whole time and care to it by men who
have from age to age controlled and checked each other,
and who have mutually instructed and perfected each
other the original text, on the contrary, behoved to
be written at a given moment, and by a single man.
With that man there was none but his God to put him
right if he made a mistake, and to supply him with
better expressions if he had chosen imperfect ones. If
God, therefore, did not do this, no one could have done
it. And if that man gave a bad rendering of the mind
of the Holy Ghost, he had not, like our translators,
friends to warn, predecessors to guide, successors to
correct, nor months, years, and ages in which to review
and consummate his work. It was done by one man,
and done once for all. This consideration, then, fur-
ther shows how much more necessary the intervention
of the Holy Ghost was to the sacred authors than to
their translators.
3. A third consideration, which ought also to lead
us to the same conclusion, is, that while all the trans-
lators of the Scriptures were literate and laborious
persons, and versed in the study of language, the sacred
authors, on the contrary, were, for the most part, igno-
rant men, without literary cultivation, without the habit
of writing their own tongue, and liable, from that very
158 ORIGINAL TEXT REMAINS WITH TJ8.
circumstance, if they expressed fallibly the divine reve-
lation, to give us an infallible thought in a faulty way.
4. A fourth very powerful consideration, which will
make one feel still more sensibly the immense difference
existing between the sacred writers and their transla-
tors, is, that whereas the thought from God passed like
a flash of lightning before the soul -of the prophet;
D O A A
whereas this thought could nowhere be found again upon
earth, except in the rapid expression which was then
given to it by the sacred writer ; whereas, if he have ex-
pressed it ill, you know not where to go in search of its
prototype in order to recover the thought meant to be
conveyed by God in its purity; whereas, if he have
made a mistake, his blunder is for ever irreparable ; it
must last longer than heaven and earth, it has blemished
the eternal book remedilessly, and nobody on earth can
correct it ; it is quite otherwise with translators. These,
on the contrary, have always the divine text at hand, so
as to be corrected and re-corrected, according to the
eternal type, until they have become an exact counter-
part of it. The inspired word leaves us not ; we need
not to go in search of it to the third heaven ; it is still
upon the earth, just as God himself first dictated it to
us. You may thus devote ages to its study, in order that
the human process of our translation may be subjected to
its immutable truth. You can now, after the lapse of
a hundred and thirty years, correct Osterwald and
Martin, by means of a closer comparison of them with
their infallible standard ; after the lapse of three hun-
dred and seventeen years, you can correct the work of
Luther ; after that, of fourteen hundred and forty years,
that of St Jerome. God's phraseology is still before us,
with which to confront our modern versions, as dictated
by God himself, in Hebrew or in Greek, on the day of
its being revealed ; and, with our dictionaries in your
hand, you may, age after age, return to the examina-
tion of the infallible expression which it has been his
food pleasure to give to the divine thought, until you
ecome assured that the language of the modern ones
DIFFERENCE IN THE RANGE OF CONJECTURES. 159
has truly received the counter impression, and given
you the most faithful fac-simile of it for your own use.
Say no more then, What avails it to me, that the one
is divine since the other is human ? If you would have
a hust of Napoleon, would you say to the sculptor,
What avails it to me that your model has been moulded
at St Helena on the very face of Bonaparte, seeing that,
after all, your copy cannot have been so ?
5. In fine, what further distinguishes the first expres-
sion which the mind of God has received in the indi-
vidual words of the sacred book, from its new expres-
sion in one of our translations, is that, if you assume
the words of the one to be as little inspired as those
of the other, nevertheless, the range of conjectures
which you might make on their possible faults would
be, as respects the original text, a space without bounds
and ever enlarging itself; while that same range, as
respects the translations, is a very limited space, which
is constantly diminishing the longer you remain in it.
If some friend, returning from the East Indies, where
your father has, at a great distance from you, breathed
his last, were to bring you from him a last letter, written
with his own hand, or dictated by him, word for word,
in Bengalee, would that letter's being entirely from him
be a matter of indifference to you, because you are not
acquainted with the Bengalee language, and can read
it only in a translation ? Don't you know that you can
cause translations of it to be multiplied, until they leave
you no more doubt of the original meaning than if you
had been a Hindoo ? Will you not allow, that after
each of these new translations your uncertainties will
be always growing less and less, until they cease to be
appreciable, as is the case in arithmetic with those frac-
tionary and convergent progressions, the last terms of
which are equivalent to zero ; while, on the contrary,
if the letter were not from your father himself, but
from some stranger, who says he has only reproduced
nis thoughts, then you would find no limits to pos-
sible suppositions ; and -your uncertainties, transported
160 PLENARY INSPIRATION LIMITS DOUBT.
into spheres new and boundless, would go on increas-
ing the more you allowed your mind to dwell upon
them; as is the case in arithmetic with those ascending
progressions, the last terms of which represent infini-
tude. It is the same with the Bible. If I believe that
God has dictated the whole of it, my uncertainties with
respect to its translations are confined within a very
narrow range ; and even in this range, in proportion as
it is re-translated, the limits of doubt are constantly
drawn in more closely. But if left to think, on the
contrary, that God has not entirely dictated it, and that
human infirmity may have had its share in it, where
shall I stop in assuming that there may be errors ? I
know not. The apostles were ignorant shall I say,
they were illiterate they were Jews; they had popu-
lar prejudices ; they judaized ; they platonized ; . . . .
I know not where to stop. I will begin like Locke,
and end like Strauss. I will first deny the personality
of Satan, as a rabbinical prejudice; I will end with de-
nying that of Jesus Christ, as another prejudice. Be-
tween these two terms, in consequence, moreover, of
the ignorance, on many points, to which the apostles
were subject, I will proceed, as so many others have
done, to admit, in spite of the letter of the Bible, and
with the Bible in my hand, that there is no corruption
in men, no personality in the Holy Ghost, no divinity
in Jesus Christ, no expiation in his blood, no resurrec-
tion of the body in the grave, no eternity in future
punishments, no anger in God, no devil, no miracle, no
damned souls, no hell. St Paul was orthodox, shall I
say? as others have done; but he misunderstood his
Master. Whereas, on the contrary, if all have been
dictated by God in the original, and even to the smallest
expression, " to the least iota and tittle," who is the
translator that could seduce me, by his labours, into
any one of these negations, and make even the least
of these truths disappear from my Bible ?
Accordingly, who now can fail to perceive the enor-
mous distance interposed by all these considerations
TOE OP THE SEPTTJAGINT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 161
between those two texts (that of the Bible and that of the
translations), as respects the importance of verbal in-
spiration? Between the passing of the thoughts of
God into "human words, an$ the simple turning of these
words into other words, the distance is as wide as from
heaven to earth. God was required for the one ; man
sufficed for the other. Let it no longer be said, then,
What would it avail to us that we have verbal inspira-
tion in the one case, if we have not that inspiration in
the other case ? for between these two terms, which some
would put on an equality, the difference is almost in-
finite.
SECTION II.
USB OF THE SEPTUAGINT TRANSLATION.
People insist and say, We agree that the fact of these
modern translations does not at all affect the question
of the first inspiration of the Scriptures ; but we have
much more to urge. The sacred authors of the New
Testament, when they themselves quote the old Hebrew
Scriptures in Greek, employ for that purpose the Greek
translation, called that of the Seventy, executed at Alex-
andria two centuries and a half before Jesus Christ.
Now, no one among the moderns will dare to affirm
(as was done in former times) that the Alexandrine in-
terpreters were inspired. Would a man any more dare
to contend that that version, still human at the time of
Jesus Christ, acquired, by the sole fact of the apostolic
quotations, a divinity which it did not previously pos-
sess ? Would not this strange allegation resemble that
of the Council of Trent, when it pronounced to be divine
apocryphal writings, which the ancient Church re-
jected from the canon, and which St Jerome called
"fables, and a medley of gold and clay ; " * or when it
1 Caveat omnia apocrypha .... Sciat multa his admixta vjtioaa t
et grandis esse prudentise aurum in luto quserere. See Epist. ad
162 USE OF THE SEPTUAGINT IK THE NEW TESTAMENT.
pronounced that translation by St Jerome to be au-
thentic, which, at first, in the opinion of St Jerome
himself, and thereafter in that of the Church for above a
thousand years, was no more than a human work, re-
spectable, no doubt, but imperfect? "Would it not
further resemble the silly infallibility of Sixtus Y., who
declared his edition of 1590 to be authentic; or that of
his successor, Clement VIII., who, finding the edition of
Sixtus Y. intolerably incorrect, suppressed it in 1592, in
order to substitute in its place another very different,
and yet still more authentic?*
Here we gladly recall this difficulty; because, like
many others, when more closely examined, it converts
the objections into arguments.
No more is required, in fact, than to study the manner
in which the apostles employ the Septuagint, in order
to see in it a striking sign of the verbal inspiration under
which they wrote.
Were a prophet to be sent by God in our day to the
churches speaking the French tongue, how shall it be
thought he would act in quoting the Scriptures ? He
would do so in French no doubt ; but according to what
version? As Osterwald and Martin's are those most
extensively circulated, he would probably make his
quotations in the words of one or other of them, in all
cases where their translation should seem to him suffi-
ciently exact. But also, notwithstanding our habitual
practice and his, he would take care to abandon both
those versions, and translate in his own way, as often as
the thought intended to be conveyed by the original did
not seem to him to be rendered with sufficient fidelity.
Nay, he would sometimes even do more. In order to
our being enabled to comprehend more fully in what
sense he meant to make for us the application of such
Lzetam. Prolog. Galeat. sire Praafat. ad. lib. Regum. Symbol,
Ruffini, torn. ix. p. 186. See Lardner, vol. v. p. 18-22.
1 See Korholt. Da Variis S. Scripturae editionibus, p. 1 10-251.
Thomas James, Bellum Papale, sive Concordia Discors Sixti V. etc.,
Lond. 1600. Hamilton's Introduction to the Reading of the He-
brew Scriptures, p. 163, 166.
USE OP THE SEPTUAGINT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 163
or such a Scripture, he would paraphrase the passage
quoted, and in citing it, follow neither the letter of the
original text nor that of the translations.
This is precisely what has been done by the sacred
writers of the New Testament with respect to the Sep-
tuagint.
Although it was the universal practice of the Hellen-
istic Jews, throughout the whole of the East, to read in
their synagogues and to quote in their discussions the
Old Testament according to that ancient version, 1 the
apostles show us the independence of the Spirit that
guided them, by the three several methods they follow
in their quotations.
First, when the Alexandrine translators seem to
them correct, they do not hesitate to conform to the
recollections of their Hellenist auditors, and to quote the
Septuagint version literatim and verbatim.
Secondly, and this often occurs when dissatisfied with
the work of the Seventy, they amend it, and make their
quotations according to the original Hebrew, translating
it more correctly.
Thirdly, in fine, when they would point out more
clearly in what sense they adduce such or such a decla-
ration of the holy books, they paraphrase it in quoting
it. It is then the Holy Ghost who, by their mouth,
quotes himself, modifying at the same time the expres-
sions which he had previously dictated to the prophets
of his ancient people. One may compare, for example,
Mic. v. 2 with Matt. ii. 6 ; Mai. iii. 1 with Matt.
xi. 10, Mark i. 2, and Luke vii. 27, &c. &c.
The learned Home, in his " Introduction to the Cri-
tical Study of the Bible" (vol. i. p. 503,) has ranged
under five distinct classes, relatively to the Septuagint
version, the quotations made in the New Testament
from the Old. We do not here warrant all his distinc-
tions, nor all his figures; but our readers will compre-
hend the force of our argument, on our informing them
1 The Talmud even forbids the translation of the Scriptures, ex-
cept into Greek. (Talmud MegUlah, fol. 86.)
164 THE VARIOUS READINGS.
that that learned author reckons eighty-eight verbal
quotations that agree with the Alexandrine translations;
sixty-four more that are borrowed from them, but with
some variations ; thirty-seven that adopt the same mean-
ing with them without employing their words ; sixteen
that differ from them in order to agree more nearly with
the Hebrew ; and, finally, twenty that differ from both
the Hebrew and the Septuagint, but in which the sacred
authors have paraphrased the Old Testament, in order
that the sense in which they quote it may be better
understood.
These numerical data will sufficiently enable the
reader to form a just idea of the independence claimed
by the Holy Ghost with regard to human versions, when
he desired to quote, in the New Testament, that which
he had previously caused to be written in the Old.
Accordingly, they not only answer the objection they
convert it into a testimony.
SECTION III.
THE VARIOUS HEADINGS.
We must give up the translations, then, other opponents
will say, and admit that they nowise affect the question
of the primary inspiration of the original text. But in
that very text there are numerous differences among the
ancient manuscripts which our Churches consult, and on
which our printed editions are based. Confronted with
proofs of such a fact, what becomes of the doctrine of
verbal inspiration, and what purpose can it serve ?
Here, too, the answer is easy. We might say at once
of the various readings of the manuscripts, what we
have said of the translations : Why confound two
orders of facts that are absolutely distinct : that of the
first inspiration of the Scriptures, and that of the pre-
sent integrity of the copies that have been made of
TWO DIFFERENT QUESTIONS CONFOUNDED. 165
them ? If it was God himself that dictated the letter of
the sacred oracles, that is a fact past recall ; and no
more can the copies made of them, than the translations
given to us of them, undo that first act.
When a fact is once consummated, nothing that hap-
pens subsequently can efface it from the history of the
past. There are here, then, two questions which we
must carefully distinguish. Was the whole of Scrip-
ture divinely inspired ? this is the first question ;
it is that with which we have now to do. Are the
copies made of it many centuries afterwards by doc-
tors and monks correct ? or are they not correct ? that
is the second question. This last can nowise affect the
other. Don't proceed, then, to subject the former, by a
strange piece of inattention, to the latter ; they are in-
dependent of each other. A book is from God, or it is
not from God. In the latter case, it were idle for me
to transcribe it a thousand times exactly I should not
thereby render it divine; and in the former case, 1
should in vain take a thousand incorrect copies ;
neither folly nor unfaithfulness on my part, can undo
the fact of its having been given by God. The Deca-
logue, yet once more we repeat it, was entirely written
by the finger of Jehovah on two tables of stone ; but if
the manuscripts that give it to me at the present day pre-
sent some various readings, this second fact would not
prevent the first. The sentences, words, and letters of
the Ten Commandments, would not the less have been
all engraven by God. Inspiration of the first text, in-
tegrity of the subsequent copies these are two orders
of facts absolutely different, and separated from each
other by thousands of stadia, and thousands of years.
Beware, then, of confounding what logic, time, and
space compel you to distinguish.
It is by precisely a similar process of reasoning, that
we reprove the indiscreet lovers of the apocryphal writ-
ings. The ancient oracles of God, we tell them, were
committed to the Jewish people, as the new oracles were
committed afterwards to the Christian people. If, then,
1 66 LOGICAL LIMITS OF THE OBJECTION.
the Book of Maccabees was a merely human book in the
days of Jesus Christ, a thousand decrees of the Christian
Church could not have any such effect thereafter as that,
in 1560, becoming what it had never been till then, it
should be transubstantiated into a divine book. Did the
prophets write the Bible with the words which human
wisdom dictated, or with words given them by God ?
such is our question. But have they been faithfully
copied from age to age, from manuscripts into manu-
scripts ? this is yours, perhaps. It is very important
no doubt ; but it is entirely different from the first. Do
not, then, confound what God has separated.
It is true, no doubt, will people say, that the fidelity
of one copy does not make the original divine, when it
is not so ; and the incorrectness of another copy will
not make it human, if it was not so. Accordingly, this
is not what we maintain. The fact of the inspiration of
the sacred text in the days of Moses, or the days of St
John, cannot depend upon the copies which we shall
have made of it in Europe and Africa, two or three
thousand years after them ; but though the second of
these facts does not destroy the first, it at least renders
it illusory, by depriving it of its whole worth and
utility.
Now, then, mark to what the objection is confined.
The question is no longer about the inspiration of
the original text the whole attack here is directed
against its present integrity. It was first a question of
doctrine : " Is it declared in the Bible that the Bible is
inspired even in its language ?" But it is no more now
than a question of history, or of criticism : " Have the
copyists copied faithfully? are the manuscripts faith-
ful ?" Accordingly, we might say nothing now on a
position of which we are not here called upon to under-
take the defence ; but the answer is easy ; I will say
more God has rendered it so triumphant that we will
not restrain ourselves from giving it. Besides, the faith
of simple minds has been so often disquieted on this sub-
ject by a phantasmagoria of learning, that we consider
GOD*8 CARE OF HIS OWN WORD. 16?
it useful here to expose its hollo wness. And, although
this objection in some sort withdraws us from the
field which we had traced out for our ourselves, we will
follow it, for the purpose of answering it.
No doubt, had this difficulty been presented to us in
the days of Anthony Collins and the Free Thinkers,
we should not have been left without reply, but we
should have felt perhaps some embarrassment, because
full light had not then been thrown upon the facts, and
because the field of conjectures, as yet unexplored, re-
mained undefined. We know the perplexities of the
excellent Bengel on this question ; and we know that
these led, first, to his laborious researches on the sacred
text, and, next, to his pious wonder and gratitude at the
preservation of that text. Of what use, one might
have said, is the assurance that the original text was
dictated by God eighteen hundred years ago, if I have
no longer the certainty that the manuscripts of our
libraries still present it to me in its purity, and if it be
true (as we are assured) that the various readings of
these rolls are at least thirty thousand in number ?
Such is the old objection : it was specious ; but now-
a-days it is known, by all who have studied it, to be a
mere illusion. The Rationalists themselves have ad
mitted that it can no longer be made, and must be
given up.
The Lord has watched miraculously over his Word.
This the facts of the case have demonstrated.
In constituting as its depositaries, first, the Churches
of the Jewish people, and then those of the Christian
people, his providence had by this means to see to the
faithful transmission of the oracles of God to us. It
has done this ; and in order to the attainment of this
result, it has put different causes in operation, of which
we shall have again to speak afterwards. Late learned
researches have thrown the clearest light on this great
fact. Herculean labours have been bestowed, during
the whole of the last century (particularly in its last
half ) and the first part of this, on the task of bringing
16
168 RESULT OF MODERN RESEARCHES.
together all tlie various readings that either the detailed
examination of the manuscripts of holy Scripture pre-
served in the different libraries of Europe, or the study
of the most ancient versions, or the searching out of
the innumerable quotations made from our sacred books
in all the writings of the fathers of the Church, could
furnish ; and this immense toil has ended in a result
wonderful by its insignificance, and (shall I say ?) im-
posing by its nullity.
As respects the Old Testament, the indefatigable
investigations and the four folios of Father Houbigant;
the thirty years' labours of John Henry Michaelis; above
all, the great Critical Bible and the ten years' study of
the famous Kennicott (who consulted five hundred and
eighty -one Hebrew manuscripts) ; and, in fine, Professor
Rossi's collection of six hundred and eighty manu-
scripts; as respects the New Testament, the no less
gigantic investigations of Mill, Bengel, Wetstein, and
Griesbach (who consulted three hundred and thirty-
five manuscripts for the Gospels alone) ; the latest
researches of Nolan, Matthaei, Lawrence, and Hug ;
above all, those of Scholz (with his six hundred and
seventy-four manuscripts for the Gospels, his two hun-
dred for the Acts, his two hundred and fifty- six for the
Epistles of Paul, his ninety-three for the Apocalypse,
(without reckoning his fifty- three Lectionaria) : all these
vast labours have so convincingly established the asto-
nishing preservation of that text, copied nevertheless so
many thousands of times (in Hebrew during thirty-
three centuries, and in Greek during eighteen hundred
years), that the hopes of the enemies of religion, in this
quarter, have been subverted, and as Michaelis has
said, " They have ceased henceforth to look for any thing
from those critical researches which they at first so
warmly recommended, because they expected discoveries
from them that have never been made." x The learned
Rationalist Eichhorn himself also owns that the different
1 Michaelis, t. ii. p. 266.
PROVES UiaMPORTANCE OF THE VARIATIONS. 169
readings of the Hebrew manuscripts collected by Ken-
nicott hardly offer sufficient interest to compensate for
the trouble they cost ! x But these very misreckonings,
and the absence of those disco veries, have proved a pre-
cious discovery for the Church of God. She expected
as much ; but she is delighted to owe it to the labour of
her very adversaries. " In truth," says a learned man
of our day, " but for those precious negative conclusions
that people have come to, the direct result obtained
from the consumption of so many men's lives in these
immense researches may seem to amount to nothing ;
and one may say that in order to come to it, time,
talent, and learning have all been foolishly thrown
away." 2 But, as we have said, this result is immense in
virtue of its nothingness, and all-powerful in virtue of
its insignificance. When one thinks that the Bible has
been copied during thirty centuries, as no book of man
has ever been, or ever will be ; that it was subjected to
all the catastrophes and all the captivities of Israel;
that it was transported seventy years to Babylon ; that
it has seen itself so often persecuted, or forgotten, or
interdicted, or burnt, from the days of the Philistines
to those of the Seleucidse ; when one thinks that,
since the time of Jesus Christ, it has had to traverse
the first three centuries of the imperial persecutions,
when persons found in possession of the holy books
were thrown to the wild beasts ; next the 7th, 8th,
and 9th centuries, when false books, false legends,
and false decretals, were everywhere multiplied; the
10th century, when so few could read, even among
princes; the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, when
the use of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue was
punished with death, and when the books of the an-
cient fathers were mutilated, when so many ancient
traditions were garbled and falsified, even to the very
acts of the emperors, and to those of the councils ;
then we can perceive how necessary it was that the
i Einleitung, 2. Th. a. 700.
Wiseman's Discourses on the Relations, etc., ii. Disc. 10.
1TO INSIGNIFICANCE OF THE VARIATIONS
providence of God should have always put forth its
mighty power, in order that, on the one hand, the
Church of the Jews should give us, in its integrity,
that Word which records its revolts, which predicts its
ruin, which describes Jesus Christ ; and, on the other,
that the Christian Churches (the most powerful of
which, and the Roman sect in particular, interdicted
the people from reading the sacred hooks, and substi-
tuted in so many ways the traditions of the middle ages
for the Word of God) should nevertheless transmit to
us, in all their purity, those Scriptures, which condemn
all their traditions, their images, their dead languages,
their absolutions, their celibacy ; wbich say, that Rome
would be the seat of a terrible apostasy, where " the
Man of Sin would be seen sitting as God in the temple
of God, waging war on the saints, forbidding to marry,
and to use meats which God had created;" which say
of images, " Thou shalt not bow down to them" of
unknown tongues, " Thou shalt not use them" of the
cup, " Drink ye all of it" of the Virgin, " Woman,
what have I to do with thee?" and of marriage, "It
is honourable in all."
Now, although all the libraries in which ancient
copies of the sacred books may be found, have been
called upon to give their testimony; although the eluci-
dations given by the fathers of all ages have been studied ;
although the Arabic, Syriac, Latin, Armenian, and
Ethiopian versions have been collated; although all
the manuscripts of all countries and ages, from the
third to the sixteenth century, have been collected and
examined a thousand times over, by countless critics,
who have eagerly sought out some new text, as the re-
compense and the glory of their wearisome wa-tchings ;
although learned men, not content with the libraries of
the West, have visited those of Russia, and carried
their researches into the monasteries of Mont Athos,
Turkish Asia, and Egypt, there to look for new instru-
ments of the sacred text ; " Nothing has been disco
vered," says a learned person, already quoted, "not
BOTH IN THE NEW AND OLD TESTAMENTS. 171
even a single reading, that could throw doubt on any
one of the passages before considered as certain. All
the variantes, almost without exception, leave untouched
the essential ideas of each phrase, and bear only on
points of secondary importance ; " such as the insertion
or the omission of an article or a conjunction, the posi-
tion of an adjective before or after its substantive, the
greater or less exactness of a grammatical construc-
tion.
And would we be less rigorous in our demands with
respect to the Old Testament? the famous Indian
manuscript, recently deposited in the Cambridge li-
brary, will furnish an example.
It is thirty- three years since the pious and learned
Claudius Buchanan, while visiting, in the Indian penin-
sula, the black Jews of Malabar (who are supposed to be
the remains of the first dispersion under Nebuchadnez-
zar), saw in their possession an immense roll, com-
posed of thirty-seven skins, tinged with red, forty- eight
feet long, twenty-two inches wide, and which, in its
originally entire state, must have had ninety English
feet of development. The Holy Scriptures had been
traced on it by different hands. There remained one
hundred and seventeen columns of beautiful writing ;
and there was wanting only Leviticus and part of
Deuteronomy. Buchanan succeeded in having this
ancient and precious monument, which served for the
worship of the synagogue, committed to his care, and
he afterwards deposited it in the Cambridge lib-
rary.
The impossibility of supposing that this roll had been
taken from a copy brought by European Jews, was
perceived from certain evident marks. Now, Mr Yeates
lately submitted it to the most attentive examination ;
and took the trouble to collate it, word by word, letter
by letter, with our Hebrew edition of Van der Hooght.
He has published the results of his researches. And
what have they been ? Why, this : that there do not
exist, between the text of India and that of the West.
i72 CAREFUL COPYING OF THE MASSORETHES.
above forty small differences, not one of which is of
sufficient importance to lead to even a slight change in
the meaning and interpretation of our ancient text ; and
that these are but the additions or retrenchments of an
> or a i, letters the presence or absence of which, in
Hebrew, cannot alter the import of the word. 1
We know the peculiar character, among the Jews, of
those Massorethes, or doctors of tradition, whose whole
profession consisted in transcribing the Scriptures, we
know to what a pitch these learned men carried respect
for the letter ; and when we read the rules that regu-
lated their labours, we can comprehend what use the
providence of the Lord, who had " committed his ora-
cles to the Jewish people," knew to make of their
reverential respect, their strictness, and even their super-
stition. In each of the books they counted the number
of verses, of words, of letters : they could have told
you, for example, that the letter appears forty- two
thousand three hundred and seventy-seven times in the
Bible, the letter a thirty- eight thousand two hundred
and eighteen times, and so on : they would have scru-
pled at changing the position of a single letter evidently
displaced ; they would only have called your attention
to it on the margin, and would have supposed some
mystery involved in it ; they would have told you the
middle letter in the Pentateuch, and that which is in
the middle of each of the particular books of which it
is composed: they never would permit themselves to
retouch their manuscript; and if any mistake had
escaped from them, they would have rejected the pa-
pyrus or the parchment which it had spoilt, and would
have begun anew ; for they were equally interdicted
from ever correcting any of their blunders, and from
preserving for their sacred volume a parchment or
skin that had suffered any erasure.
This intervention of God's providence in the preser-
1 See Christian Observer, vol. xii. p. 170. Examen d'un exem-
pJaire Jndien du Pentateuque, p. 8. Home's Introduction and Ap-
pendix, p. 95, edition 1818.
GODS PBOVIDENTIAL CARE OF THE O. T. TEXT. 173
vation of the Old Testament becomes still more striking
in our eyes, if we compare the astonishing integrity of
the original Hebrew (at the close of so many centuries)
with the rapid and profound alteration which the Greek
version of the Septuagint had undergone in the days of
Jesus Christ (after the lapse of only two hundred years).
Notwithstanding that that hook had acquired throughout
the whole East, after the almost universal propagation
of the Greek language, a semicanonical authority, first
among the Jews and then among the Christians ; not-
withstanding its being afterwards the only text to which
the fathers of the East and of the West (with the ex-
ception of Origen and of Jerome) had recourse for what
they knew of the Old Testament, the only one that was
commented on by the Chrysostoms and the Theodorets
the only one whence such men as Athanasius, Basil,
and Gregory of Nazianzus drew their" arguments;
notwithstanding that the Western no more than the
Eastern world had any better source of illumination,
during so many ages, than that borrowed light (seeing
that the ancient 'Italian Vulgate, which was in universal
use, had been translated from the Greek of the Septua-
gint, and not from the Hebrew of the original) ; yet
hear what the learned tell us of the alteration of that
important monument of the additions, changes, and
interpolations to which it had been subjected, first
through the doings of the ancient Jews before the days
of Jesus Christ, after that by the unbelieving Jews,
and later still through the heedlessness of Christian
copyists: "The evil was such (mirum in modmri),"
says Dr Lee, " that in certain books the ancient version
could hardly be recognised ; and when Origen, in
the year 231, had devoted twenty-eight years of his
noble life in searching for different manuscripts of it,
with the view of doing for that text (in his Tetrapla
and his Hexapla) what modern critics have done for
that of the Old and New Testaments, not only could he
not find any copy that was correct, but he further made
matters worse. Through the unskilfulness of the copy
174 GOD'S PROVIDENTIAL CARE OF THE N. T. TEXT.
ists (who neglected the transcriptions of his obelisks,
asterisks, and other marks), the greater numher of his
marginal corrections found their way into the text ; so
that new errors having spread there, one could no
longer, in the time of Jerome, distinguish between his
annotations and the primitive text." 1 We repeat, these
facts, placed in contrast with the astonishing preserva-
tion of the Hebrew text (older than that of the LXX.
by more than twelve hundred years), proclaim loudly
enough how necessary it was that the mighty hand of
God should intervene in the destinies of the sacred
book.
So much for the Old Testament. But let it not be
thought that the Providence that watched over that
sacred book, and which committed it to the Jews
(Rom. iii. 1, 2), has done less for the protection of the
oracles of the New Testament, committed by it to the
new people of God. It has not left to the latter
less cogent motives to gratitude and feelings of se-
curity.
Here we would appeal, by way of testimony, to the
late experience of the authors of a version of the New
Testament which has just been published in Switzer-
land, and in the long labours of which we ourselves
had a part. A single trait may enable all classes of
readers to understand how very insignificant are the
different readings presented by the manuscripts. The
translators to whom we refer followed, without the
smallest deviation, what is called the received edition,
that is to say, the Greek text of Elzevir, 1624, so long
adopted by all our Churches ; but as, in conformity
with the original plan of the work they had under-
taken, they had first of all to introduce into their
original text the various readings that have been most
approved by the criticism of the last century, they very
often, found themselves embarrassed, from perceiving
the impossibility of expressing, even in the most literal
1 Proleg. in Bibl. Polyglott. Bagsteriana (iv. sect. 2.)
ILLUSTRATION FROM MARTIN AND OSTERWALD. 175
French, the new shade of meaning introduced by that
correction into their Greek. The French language, in
the most scrupulous version, has not flexibility enough
to enable it to assume these differences of manner, so
as to put them in proper relief; just as the casts taken
from the face of a king reproduce in brass his noble
features, yet without being capable of marking every
vein and wrinkle.
We desire, however, to give such of our readers as
are strangers to sacred criticism, two or three other
and still more intelligible means of estimating that
providence which has for thirty centuries watched over"
our sacred texts.
The first is as follows : We would bid them com-
pare the two Protestant translations by Osterwald and
Martin. There are few modern versions that come so
close to each other. The old version of the Geneva
pastors having been taken as the basis of both both
having been written at nearly the same time and in the
same spirit they differ so little, especially in the New
Testament, that our Bible societies distribute them in-
differently, and that one finds it hard to say which of
the two ought to be preferred. Nevertheless, if you
take the trouble to note their differences, taking all
things into account, as has been done on comparing our
four hundred manuscripts of the New Testament, the
one with the other, we affirm beforehand (and rather
think that in this we under-state the truth), that these
two French texts are three times, and in many chapters
ten times, wider from each other than the Greek text
of our printed editions is, we will not say only from
the least esteemed of the Greek manuscripts of our
libraries, but FROM ALL THEIR MANUSCRIPTS PUT TO-
GETHER. Hence we will venture to say, that were some
able and ill-meaning person (such as we may suppose
the wretched Voltaire or the too celebrated Anthony
Collins to have been in the last century) to study to
select at will, out of all the manuscripts of the East
and the West, when placed before him, the worst read-
17
176 ILLUSTRATION FROM GRIESBACH's CORRECTIONS.
ings and the variations most remote from our received
text, -with the perfidious intention of composing at
pleasure the most faulty text such a man, we say (even
were he to adopt such various readings as should have
in their favour no more than ONE SOLE manuscript out
of the four or five hundred of our libraries), could not,
in spite of all his mischievous inclination, produce a
Testament, as the result of his labours, that would be
less close to that of our Churches than Martin is to
Osterwald. Further, you might send it abroad instead
of the true text, with as little inconvenience as you
would find in giving French Protestants Martin rather
than Osterwald, or Osterwald rather than Martin ; and
with far less scruple than you would feel in circulating
De Sacy's version among the followers of the Church
of Rome.
No doubt these last books are only translations,
whereas all the Greek manuscripts profess to be original
texts ; and it must be admitted that, in this respect,
our comparison is very imperfect : but it is not less
fitted to re-assure the friends of the Word of God, by
enabling them to understand the extreme insignificance
of the various readings.
Meanwhile, what follows is something more direct
and more precise.
In order to give all our readers some measure at once
of the number and of the harmlessness of the read-
ings that have been collected together in the manuscripts
of our libraries, we proceed to present two specimens of
these. It will consist, first, of a schedule containing
the first eight verses of the Epistle to the Romans, with
ALL THE VARIOUS READINGS relating to these IN ALL
THE MANUSCRIPTS of the East and of the West. This
will be followed by a schedule of the whole epistle,
with ALL TEE- CORRECTIONS that the celebrated Gries-
bach, the oracle of modern criticism, thought he ought
to introduce into it.
We have taken these passages at random, and de-
clare that we have not been led to make choice of them
MARTIN AND OSTERWALD COMPARED. 1?7
in preference to others, by any reason bearing upon our
argument.
We feel gratified at placing these short documents
before the eyes of persons who are not called by their
position to follow out, of themselves, the investigations
of sacred criticism, and whose minds, nevertheless, may
have been somewhat discomposed by the language,
at once mysterious and imposing, which the rationalists
of the last century have so often employed on the sub-
ject. To hear them speak, would you not have said
that modern science was about to give us a new Bible,
to bring down Jesus Christ from the throne of God, to
restore to man, when calumniated by our theology, all
his titles to innocence, and to set to rights all the dogmas
of our old orthodoxy ?
As a first term of comparison, our columns will pre-
sent first of all, in the eight first verses of the Epistle to
the Romans, the differences betwixt the one text of
Martin (1707) and the one text of Osterwald, (Bag-
ster's edition), while the following columns, instead of
comparing any one sole manuscript with any other sole
manuscript whatsoever, will present the differences be-
tween our received text and ALL THE MANUSCRIPTS that
one has been able to collect down to Griesbach. That
learned and indefatigable person, for the Epistle to the
Romans, scrutinized first of all seven manuscripts writ-
ten WITH UNCIAL LETTERS (or Greek capitals), and it is
thought, from thirteen to fourteen centuries old, (the
Alexandrine, in the British Museum ; that of the Vati-
can, and that of Cardinal Passionei at Rome ; that of
Ephrem at Paris ; that of St Germain, that of Dresden,
and that of Cardinal Coisliri) ', and after that, a hun-
dred and ten manuscripts in small letters, and thirty
others, brought for the most part from Mount Athos,
and consulted by the learned Matthei, who travelled long
for that purpose in Russia and the East.
For the four Gospels, the same Griesbach had op-
portunities of consulting as many as three hundred and
thirty-five manuscripts.
178
MARTIN AND OSTERWALD COMPARED.
VARIOUS READINGS.
FIRST TABLE.
OSTERWALD'S TEXT.
Ver. 2. quHl.
promis auparavant.
... 3. de la race.
... 4. et qui selon 1'Esprit . . .
a et6.
a ete declare,
avec puissance,
par sa resurrection.
1'Esprit de saintete.
Savoir.
J. C. notre Seigneur.
... 5. afin (Tamener tous les
Geritils a 1'obeissance
de la foi.
... 6. du nombre desquels
TOUS etes aussi, TOUS.
qui avez ete appeles.
.. 7. appeles et saints.
la grace et la paix
TOUS soient donnies
de la part de Dieu notre
pere
et de
notre Seigneur J. C.
.. 8. Avant toutes choses.
au sujet de TOUS tous.
est celebre.
MARTIN'S TEXT (1707.)
lequel.
auparavant promis.
de la setuence.
et qui a ete selon, ....
TEsprit.
a 6t pleinement declared
en puissance,
par la resurrection.
1'Esprit de sanctification.
c'est a dire,
notre Seigneur J. C.
afin qu'il y ait obeissance de
foi parmi tous les Gentils.
entre lesquels
aussi TOUS etesj TOUS
qui etes appele's.
appelea a etre saints,
grace TOUS soit et paix
TOUS soient donnees
de par Dieu notre pere
et de par
le Seigneur J. C.
Premierement.
touchant TOUS tous.
est renommee.
These differences between the two French texts are
sufficiently insignificant ; and were one to tell us that,
in all these verses, one or other of the two is inspired of
God, our faith would receive great aid from this. Now
it will be seen that the various readings of the Greek
manuscripts are still more insignificant.
Let us now examine, on the same verses, the table
containing the received text, compared with all the dif-
ferent readings that could be presented by the hundred
and fifty Greek manuscripts collected and consulted for
the Epistle to the Romans.
ELZEVIR COMPARED WITH VARIOUS READINGS. 179
Here we shall not point out either the differences
presented by the ancient translations, or those that be-
long only to the punctuation (that element being almost
null in the most ancient manuscripts).
We shall translate the first column (that of the re-
ceived text) according to the old version, which is more
literal than Osterwald's ; and we shall also endeavour to
render the Greek readings of the second column as ex-
actly as possible.
SECOND TABLE.
THE RECEIVED TEXT (THAT OF
ELZEVIR, 1624.)
Ver. 1. No difference.
... 15. by his prophets.
... 3. who was made.
... 4. and declared. -
5. No difference.
6. No difference.
7. that be in Rome, beloved
of God. called.
from God our Father.
< 8. First.
for you alL
VARIOUS READINGS, COLLKCTED
FROM AMONG ALL THE GREEK
MANUSCRIPTS UNITED.
by the prophets.
(Jin a single Parisian manu-
script.)
who was begotten.
(In a single Upsala manuscript,
and oy the mere change of two
letters.)
and predeclared.
(In only one of the twenty-two
manuscripts oj the Barberim
Library.)
who are in the love of God, called.
(A single manuscript that of
Dresden, in uncial letters.)
that be in Rome, called.
(Only two manuscripts that of
St Germain, in uncial letters^
and a Roman one, in small let-
ters.)
from God the Father.
(A single Upsala manuscript.)
First.
(T/te difference untranslatable. It
is to oe found in only one ma-
nuscript.)
with respect to you all.
(Two manuscripts.)
Here we have nine or ten different readings, of no
importance in themselves ; and, moreover, they have in
180 GRIESBACH FAVOURED NEW READINGS.
their favour only one or two manuscripts of the hundred
and fifty open to consultation on those eight verses,
with the exception of the last (" for you all," instead of
" with respect to you all"), which reckons in its favour
twelve manuscripts, four of which are in uncial letters.
The differences between Osterwald's and Martin's
translations are three times as numerous; and, gene-
rally speaking, these differences are far more important
in point of meaning. This comparison, were we to
continue it through the whole New Testament, would
bear the same character, and become even still more
insignificant.
Nevertheless, those of our readers who have hitherto
been strangers to such researches will not be displeased,
we believe, at our offering, in a third table, a fresh
method of estimating the harmlessness of the variations,
and the nullity of the objection that has been drawn
from them.
This last table will present the totality of the correc-
tions which, according to the learned Griesbach, the
father of sacred criticism, ought to be introduced into
the text of the Epistle to the Romans, after the pro-
longed study of the extant manuscripts to which he had
devoted himself, and after all that had been done by
his predecessors in the same field of research.
No one who has not entered on these researches, can
form a just idea of the immensity of those labours.
Before perusing this third table, however, we would
have the reader to know
first, That Griesbach is, in general, charged by the
learned (such as Matthaei, Nolan, Lawrence, Scholz,
and others) with an excessive eagerness for the admis-
sion of new readings into the ancient text. This ten-
dency is explained by the habits of the human heart.
The learned Whitby had, before that, charged Dr Mill,
not without some foundation, with the same fault,
although he had never ventured on so many corrections
as Griesbach.
Secondly, Observe, further, that in this table we give
RECEIVED TEXT AND GRIESBACH COMPARED. 181
not only those corrections which the learned critic was
fully persuaded people ought to adopt, but those also
which he has said were as yet only doubtful in his eyes,
and not to be confidently preferred to the generally
received text. '
THIRD TABLE.
GRIESBACH'S CORRECTIONS, EXTENDING TO THE "WHOLE OP
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.
RECEIVED TEXT. SUBSTAN-
TIALLY OUR ENGLISH VERSION.
NEW TEXT. CORRECTED BY
GRIESBACH.
CHAPTER I.
13. that I might have some
fruit.
16. I am not ashamed.
the gospel of Christ.
19. for God.
21. glorified him not.
24. Wherefore God also.
27. And likewise.
29. with all unrighteous-
ness, fornication,wick-
edness.
31. without natural affec-
tion, implacable, un-
merciful.
that I might have some fruit.
(There is here a mere inversion qf
the words.)
I am not ashamed.
(Difference cannot be explained
by translation.')
the gospel.
for God.
(Difference cannot oe explained.)
glorified him not.
(Difference one of orthography.)
Wherefore God.
And likewise.
(Difference not translatable.)
with all unrighteousness, wicked-
ness.
without natural affection, unmer-
ciful.
CHAPTER II.
Ver. 8. indignation and wrath.
... 13. the hearers of the law.
wrath and indignation.
the hearers of the law;
(The mere absence of the article.)
CHAPTER in.
Ver. 22. onto all and upon all
them that believe.
.. 25. through the faith.
, 28. Therefore we conclude,
that a man is justified
by the faith.
... 29. is he not.
unto all them who believe.
through faith.
In fact we conclude, that a man
is justified by faith.
is he not.
(Difference not translatable.)
182 RECEIVED TEXT AND GRIESBACH COMPARED,
CHAPTER IV.
Ver. 1. What shall we then say,
that Abraham hath
found.
Abraham our father.
4. as a debt.
... 12. in the circumcision.
... 13, heir of the world.
.. 19. And being not weak in
faith, he considered
not.
What shall we then say, that hath
found Abraham.
Abraham our ancestor.
as debt.
in circumcision.
heir of the world.
(A difference that cannot le ren-
dered.)
and did not, weak in the faith,
consider.
CHAPTER V.
Ver. 14. to Mosea.
I to Moses.
I (Difference in spelling.)
CHAPTER VI.
Ver. 1. Shall we continue.
11. yourselves to be dead,
through Jesus Christ,
our Lord.
12. that ye should obey it
in the lusts thereof.
16. whether of sin unto
death, or of obedience
unto righteousness.
Shall we continue.
(Pronoun understood not ex-
pressed.)
yourselves dead,
through Jesus Christ.
that ye should obey it.
whether of sin, or of obedience
unto righteousness.
Ver. 6. the law by which . .
being dead.
... 10. the commandment
which.
... 1*. carnal.
.. 18. I find not.
CHAPTER VII.
being dead to the law by which,
the commandment which.
(Difference of a simple accent.)
carnal.
(Difference of a letter.)
I find not.
(Difference of orthography.)
IN THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.
183
CHAPTER VIII.
Vet. 1. to them which are 'in
Jesus Christ, who walk
not after the flesh bat
after the Spirit.
... 11. by his Spirit that dwel-
Jeth in you.
... 26. our infirmities.
what we should pray for.
maketh intercession for
us with groanings.
... 36. For thy sake.
... 38. nor angels, nor princi-
palities, tior powers,
nor things present, nor
things to come.
To them which are in Christ
Jesus.
(The words left out here re-occur
at verse 4.)
on account of his Spirit that
dwelleth in you.
our infirmity.
what we should pray for.
(Difference cannot le rendered.)
maketh intercession with groan-
ings.
for thy sake.
(Diffeience untranslatable.)
nor angels, nor principalities, nor
things present, nor things to
come, nor powers.
CHAPTER IX.
Ver. II. neither good nor evil
that the purpose, ac-
cording to the election
of God.
... 15. He saith to Moses.
... 32. as it were by the works
of the law.
for they stumbled.
... 33. whosoever believeth on
him.
neither good nor evil that the
purpose of God according to
the election.
(Difference not easily rendered.)
he saith to Moses.
(Difference in spelling.)
as it were by works.
they stumbled.
he that believeth on hint.
CHAPTER x.
Ver. 1. prayer to God for Israel,
that they might be
saved.
... 5. Moses.
... 15. bring glad tidings.
... 19. Did not Israel know ?
Moses.
prayer to God for" them,
that they might be saved.
(Difference cannot le expressed.)
Moses.
(Different spelling.)
bring glad tidings.
8 difference cannot le translated.)
id it not know, Israel ?
Moses.
(Difference in spelling.)
184 RECEIVED TEXT AND GRIESBACH COMPARED.
CHAPTER XI.
Vor. 2. against Israel, saying :
Lord. . . .
3. and they have digged
down the altars.
6. And if by grace, then it
is no more of works;
otherwise grace is no
more grace. But if
it be of works, then it
is no more grace ;
otherwise work is no
more work.
7. he hath not obtained.
... 19. The branches were bro-
ken off.
... 21. spare not thee.
... 23. And they also.
... 30. and as ye have been
yourselves in times
past.
against Israel : Lord. . . .
they have digged down the altars.
And if by grace, then it is no
more of works; otherwise grace
is no more grace.
he hath not obtained.
(Difference not translatable.)
branches were broken off.
spare not thee.
(Difference cannot be rendered.)
and they also.
(Difference in spelling.)
and as ye have been in times
past.
CHAPTER XII.
Ver. 2. And be not conformed,
. . . but be ye trans-
formed,
by the renewing of your
mind.
... 11. serving the Lord.
20. Therefore if thine enemy
hunger.
And that ye be not conformed, .
. . but that ye be transformed.
by the renewing of the mind.
serving the occasion.
(The difference lies but in two
letters, the one changed, the other
transposed.)
if thine enemy hunger.
CHAPTER XIII.
Ver. 1. but of God; and the
powers that be.
are ordained of God.
8. but that ye love one
another.
.* 9. thou shalt not steal,
thou shalt not bear
false witness, thou
ehalt not covet.
but from God, and those that be.
are ordained of God.
(Difference not translatable.)
but that ye one another love.
Thou ahalt not steal, thou shall
not covet.
IN THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.
185
CHAPTER XIV.
Vet. &. Christ both died, and
rose, and revived that.
14. Nothing
itself.
is unclean of
Christ both died and lived that.
( The difference lies only in adding
two letters.).
Nothing is unclean of itself.
(Difference untranslatable.)
CHAPTER XV.
Ver. 1. We then that are strong
ought to.
... 8.
... 19.
Let every one of us
please.
For whatsoever things
were written afore-
time . . . were writ-
ten.
Now I say.
by the power of the Spi-
rit of God.
... 24. I will come to you when-
soever I take my jour-
ney into Spain, and I
hope that I shall see
you.
... 29. in the fulness of the
blessing of the gospel
of Christ.
(Griesbach thinJcs that probably
here ought to lie placed the three
verses at the end of the Epis-
tle :) Now, to him . . . We
then that are strong ought to.
(The question is merely about a
transposition; and one "which
Scholz has not adopted.)
(A difference that cannot be ren-
dered.)
(A difference that cannot be ren-
dered.)
for I say.
by the power of the Spint.
whensoever I take my journey
into Spain, I hope that I shall
see you.
in the fulness of the blessing of
Christ.
CHAPTER XVI.
2. for she hath been a
succourer.
3. Priscilla.
5. Who is the first fruits
of Achaia.
6. Who bestowed much
labour on us.
18. serve not our Lord Jesus
Christ.
20. The grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ be with
you ! Amen.
25. Now to him' that is of
power. . . .
(The difference cannot be ren-
dered.)
Prisca.
Who is the first fruits of Asia.
Who bestowed much labour on
you.
Serve not our Lord Christ.
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you.
(These words according to Gries-
bach, ought rather to oe placed
at the Beginning of chapter xv.j
186 INSIGNIFICANCE OF THE VARIOUS READINGS.
Here, then, the thing is evident : such is the real
insignificance of the various readings about which so
much noise was made at first. Such has been the asto-
nishing preservation of the Greek manuscripts of the
New Testament that have been transmitted to us.
After the copying and recopying of the sacred text,
whether in Europe, in Asia, or in Africa, whether in
monasteries, or in colleges, or in palaces, or in the
houses of the clergy (and this, too, almost without in-
terruption, during the long course of fifteen hundred
years); after that during the three last centuries, and,
above all, in the hundred and thirty years that have
just elapsed, so many noble characters, so many inge-
nious minds, so many learned lives have been consumed
in labours hitherto unheard of for their extent, admir-
able for their sagacity, and scrupulous as those of the
Massorethes ; after having scrutinized all the Greek
manuscripts of the New Testament that are buried in
the private, or monastic, or national libraries, of the
East and of the West ; after these have been compared,
not only with all the old translations, Latin, Armenian,
Sahidic, Ethiopia, Arabic, Sclavonian, Persian, Coptic.
Syrian, and Gothic, of the Scriptures, but further, with
all the ancient fathers of the Church, who have quoted
them in their innumerable writings, in Greek and in
Latin ; after so many researches, take this single exam-
ple, as a specimen of what people have been able to find !
Judge of the matter by this one epistle which you
have before you. It is the longest and most important
of the epistles of the New Testament, " the golden key
of the Scriptures " (as it has been called), " the ocean of
Christian doctrine." It contains four hundred and
thirty-three verses, and in these four hundred and thirty-
three verses, ninety-six Greek words that are met
with nowhere else in the New Testament. And how
many (admitting .even all the corrections that have been
adopted, or only preferred by Griesbach), how many
have you found, in these, of readings that go to change,
even slightly, the meaning of some phrase ? You have
GRIESBACH'S ALTERATIONS EXAMINED. 187
seen five such ! And, further, what are these ? We
shall repeat them ; they are as follows :
The first (chap. vii. 6) instead of" That in which,.,
being dead" Grieshach reads, " Being dead to that in
which" And note well that here in the Greek, the dif-
ference depends only on the change of a single letter
(an o instead of an e) ; and besides that, the greater
number of manuscripts were so much in favour of the
old text that, since Griesbach's time, Mr Tittman, in
his edition of 1824, has rejected this correction, and Mr
Lachman has done so also, in his edition of 1831 (Scholz,
however, has retained it).
The second is as follows, chapter xi. 6 :
Instead of, " And if by grace, then is it no more of
works ; otherwise grace is no more grace ; but if it be
of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no
more work" Griesbach takes away the latter half of
this phrase.
The third is as follows, chapter xii. 1 1 :
Instead of, " Serving the Lord" Griesbach reads,
" Serving the occasion." Note that the correction de-
pends only on the change of two letters in one of the
Greek words, and that, moreover, it does not appear to
be justified by the number of the manuscripts. Further
here, Whitby told Mill that more than thirty manu-
scripts, that all the ancient translations, that Clement
of Alexandria, St Basil, St Jerome, all the scholiasts ot
the Greeks, and all those of the Latins with the excep-
tion of Ambrose, followed the old text ; and the two
learned men whom we have just named (Lachman and
Tittman), the one labouring at Berlin, the other a pro-
fessor at Leipsic, have restored the old text, in their
respective editions of the New Testament. This has
been done also by Scholz, in his edition of 1836, which
the learned world seems to prefer to all that have pre-
ceded it.
The fourth is as follows, chapter vi. 1 6 :
Instead of, " Whether of sin unto death or of right-
eottsness," Griesbach reads, " Whether of sin or of
188 THE EPISTLE TO THE GAL ATIANS.
righteousness; 1 ' but he himself puts at the place the
simple sign of a feeble probability; and Tittman and
Lachman, in their respective editions, have further
rejected this correction. Scholz, following their example,
has equally rejected it.
The fifth is as follows, chapter xvi. 5 :
Instead of, " The first fruits of Achaia" Griesbach
reads, " The first fruits of Asia"
Here we have taken no notice of the words that are
taken away from the first paragraph of chapter viii., be-
cause we find them again at the 4th verse.
"We see, then, the amount of the whole: such is the
admirable integrity of the Epistle to the Romans. Ac-
cording to Griesbach five insignificant corrections, in the
whole epistle according to more modern critics ONLY
TWO, and these the most insignificant of the five ; and
according to Scholz THREE !
We repeat, that we have chosen the Epistle to the
Romans, as a specimen, only because of its length and
its importance. We have not given ourselves the time-
to examine whether it presents more or fewer various
readings than any other part of the New Testament.
We have run over, for example, in Griesbach, while
reviewing these last pages, the EPISTLE TO THE GALA-
TIANS, written at the same time and on the same sub-
ject with the Epistle to the Romans ; and there we
have been unable to find more than the three following
corrections that can affect the sense, or, to speak more
correctly, the form of the sense :
Chap. iv. 17. " They would exclude us" say, " They
would exclude you."
Chap. iv. 26. " She is the mother of us all" say,
" She is the mother of us."
Chap. v. 19. "Adultery, fornication, uncleanness"
say, " Fornication, uncleanness."
These simple schedules, in our opinion, will speak
more loudly to our readers than all our general asser-
tions could do. Of this we ourselves have felt the
happy experience. We had read, no doubt, what others
PRECISE LIMITS OF OUR UNCERTAINTY. 189
before us have been able to say on the insignificance of
the different readings presented by the manuscripts ; and
we had often studied the various readings of Mill and
the severe reproaches of his adversary Whitby ; x we
had examined the writings of Wetstein, of Griesbach,
of Lachman, and of Tittman ; but when, on two occa-
sions, while taking part in the work of a new translation
of the New Testament, we have been called upon to
correct the French text according to the most esteemed
various readings, first to introduce these into it, and
afterwards to remove them out of it again, and to re-
place there in French the sense conveyed by the old
reading ; then we have had on two occasions, as it were,
an intuition of that astonishing preservation of the
Scriptures, and we have felt ourselves penetrated with
gratitude towards that wonderful providence which has
not ceased to watch, over the oracles of God, in order to
preserve their integrity to this point.
Let its true value be then assigned to the objection
that has been made to us.
Let it be shown us, for example, how three or four
various readings that we have passed under review in
the Epistle to the Romans, and which, in the opinion
of the most modern critics, are reduced to two or to
three, could render the fact of its original inspiration
illusory for us.
No doubt, in these three or four passages, as well as
in those of the other sacred books where the true Avord
of the text might be contested, no doubt there, and
there alone, of the two different readings of the manu-
scripts, one is the inspired word, and not the other j
no doubt people must in this small number of cases
divide or suspend their confidence between two expres-
sions ; but such is the extent that uncertainty reaches ;
iuch the point beyond which it must not go.
It is reckoned, that of the seven thousand nine hun-
dred and fifty-nine verses of the New Testament, there
1 Examen variantium lectionum. J. Millii. Load. 1710.
190 GREESBACH'S NEW HEADINGS.
hardly exist ten or twelve in which the corrections that
have been introduced hy the new readings of Griesbach
and Scholz, as the result of their immense researches,
have any weight at all- Further, in most instances
they consist but in the difference of a single word, and
sometimes even of a single letter.
We should be doing well, perhaps, to point these
out here also, as an addition to those to which we have
directed the reader's attention in the Epistle to the
Romans.
The twelve or thirteen following have usually been
regarded as the most important among the various read-
ings collected by Griesbach, and more recently by Scholz.
The four first even have appeared the most serious, only
because they strike at the divinity of Jesus Christ.
1st, (Acts xx. 28.) Instead of" Feed the Church
of God, which he hath bought with his own blood,"
The text of Griesbach bears " Feed the Church of
the Lord, which he hath bought with his own blood."
Here the difference of the reading preferred by Gries-
bach consists in A SINGLE LETTER (KT, instead of er).
Scholz even preserves the old text.
20?, (1 Tim. iii. 16.) Instead of- " And without con-
troversy great is the mystery of godliness, God was
manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit," ....
Some manuscripts bear " Without controversy, great
is the mystery of godliness, which was manifest in the
flesh, justified in the Spirit."
But some other manuscripts adopted by Griesbach
bear " Great is the mystery of godliness, he who was
manifest in the flesh was justified in the Spirit." ....
Here the difference is still no more than that of a
single letter, or even only that of two strokes of a
letter (some manuscripts instead of 02, having 02, and
others O).
Scholz has not admitted Griesbach's correction. Al-
most all the Greek manuscripts, says he, bear Qeng
(God). He assures us he has found it in eighty-six
manuscripts, examined by himself.
OBIE8BACH AND SCHOLZ. 191
3d, ( Jude 4.) Instead of ' "Who deny our only
ruler, God and Saviour, Jesus Christ,"
The text of Griesbach and that of Scholz bears
" Who deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ."
Here the difference is only in these two letters (es,
God), omitted in the manuscripts which Grieshach has
preferred.
We approve of the adversaries of the divinity of Jesus
Christ attaching importance to these three first correc-
tions, in respect of criticism (for every thing is of im-
portance in the Scripture), but in respect of doctrine,
we cannot comprehend how they should do so; inas-
much as, hy their own admission, there are many other
passages without various readings, in which our Lord
is called by the name of God, of true God, of the great
God. No manuscript, for example, presents varia-
tions on the first verse of the Gospel of St John : " In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God." 1 So, too, no Greek
manuscript whatsoever presents a variation in the read-
ing of that verse of the Epistle to Titus (ii. 13)
" Looking for the glorious appearance of our great God
and Saviour Jesus Christ." 2
4i&, (1 John v. 7, 8.) Instead of" There are three
that bear witness Qn heaven : the Father, the Word,
and the Holy Ghost: and these three are ONE ('EN);
and there are three that bear witness] in the earth,
1 One sole manuscript, among three hundred and fifty, that of
Stephanas, of the 8th or 9th century, puts an article before the name
of God, which would not even change the meaning here.
3 We know that Mr Wordsworth, to ascertain the meaning that
was given to that passage and the following (Eph. v. 5 ; 2 Thes. i. 12 ;
2 Tim. iv. i; Jude 4; 2 Pet. i. 1; James i. 1; 1 Tim. i. 1), at the
time when the Greek was a living tongue, was not afraid to consult
the voluminous writings of seventy Greek and sixty Latin contempo-
rary fathers, and that he saw that they invariably put the same
sense on these constructions, as designating one and the same per-
son. In the space of a thousand years (from the 2d to the 12th
century) he found fifty-four authorities of Greek fathers and sixty
of Latin fathers, unanimously giving the same meaning to those
words of Paul (Titus ii. 13): Our great God and Saviour. The
heretics themselves, says he, during the long triumph of Arianism,
18
192 BISHOP MIDDLE-TON'S REMARKS.
the Spirit, and the water, and the hlood ; and these
three agree in that ONE" (ro "EN),
Griesbach's text bears " There are three that hear
witness on the earth : the Spirit, the water, and the
blood, and the three agree in that ONE" (TO "EN).
Here, without doubt, there is the most serious varia-
tion, and, at the same time, that which is the most jus-
tified by the testimony of the manuscripts that have
been preserved down to the present day (more than a
hundred and forty against three), as well as by the uni-
versal silence of the Greek fathers. We should be
travelling out of our subject were we to undertake to
discuss here the historical testimonies x and the gram-
matical considerations that plead, on the contrary, for
retaining the old reading. We shall confine ourselves
to these two remarks by Bishop Middleton :
1. Why is the word three, the three, in the masculine
in the Greek (rgeis 01 /tagrvgouvrsg, x.ai 01 rg&s), while
the words spirit, water, and blood, to which it relates, are
all neuter (for it would have been necessary to say rg/a
TO, (U-agrugoui/ra) ? This irregularity, which is fully jus-
tified by what is called in grammar the principle of at-
traction, if the passage remains entire, becomes inexpli-
cable when you would deprive it of the contested
words.
2. Wherefore, above all, this word, that one (rb Iv, the
never once imagined translating this passage otherwise than as we do.
" No doubt (said the Arian bishop Maximin in the 5th century) the
Son, according to the apostle, is not a petty God (non pusillus sed
magnus Deus) but a great God, according to these words of Paul :
Looking for" .... (See Wordsworth's Six Letters to Granville
Sharpe.)
1 That of several Latin fathers of the 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th centu-
ries; that of the Latin Vulgate, more ancient than the most ancient
manuscripts of our libraries (supposed to date from the 5th or the
close of the 4th century) : and, above all, that of the Confession of
Faith publicly presented in 484, by four hundred bishops of Africa,
to the king of the Vandals, who, as an Arian, persecuted them, and
called on them to give an account of their doctrines. (See the Dis-
sertations of Mill, Griesbach, Bengel, Wetstein, and Lee.)
BISHOP MIDDLETON'S OPINION. 193
ONE), if some certain ONE have not been spoken of in
the preceding words ? That expression (TO sv), in that
case, would be without example. To this Bishop Middle-
ton devotes eighteen pages in his beautiful work on the
Doctrine of the Greek Article (in 8vo, Cambridge, 1828,
pp. 606 to 624). " I cannot conceive," says he in con-
clusion, " how this word, that ONE (r6 iv) can be recon-
ciled with the taking away of the preceding words.
I am aware that the greater number of the learned are
favourable to these retrenchments; but, taking all things
into view, I am led to suspect that, notwithstanding the
immense labour bestowed on this celebrated passage, some-
thing more yet remains to be done in order to clear away
the mystery in which it is still involved." The learned
Bengel, for still further reasons, said that the two verses
of this passage remain united adamantind adhcerentid.
Scholz has, like Griesbach, taken away the three
heavenly witnesses.
5th, (Apoc. viii. 13) Instead of, " And I beheld and
heard an angel flying," Griesbach' s text and that of Scholz
bear, " And I beheld and heard an eagle flying."
6th, (James ii. 18) Instead of, " Show me thy faith
by works," Griesbach's text and that of Scholz bear,
" Show me thy faith without works."
7th, (Acts xvi. 7) Instead of, " But the Spirit suffered
them not," Griesbach's text and that of Scholz bear,
" But the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not."
8th, (Ephes. v. 21) Instead of, " Submitting your-
selves one to another in the fear of God," Griesbach's
text and that of Scholz lear, " Submitting yourselves one
to another in the fear of Christ."
9th, (Apoc. i. 11) Instead of, "I am Alpha and
Omega, the first and the last," the text of Griesbach sup-
presses these words, which it has retained, hoicever, at the
8th verse, as well as at chapter xxii. 13. Scholz has
made the same correction.
10th, (Matth. xix. 17) Instead of "Why callest thou
me good?" Griesbach's text bears, "Why do you ask
me about the good (or about happiness) ? "
194 GRIESBACH AND SCHOLZ.
TI ' 1 - - - r 1 11* i_
But Scholz does not admit this correction, and re-
tains the old text.
llth, (Philip, iv. 1 3) Instead of, " I can do all things
through Christ strengthening me," GriesbacKs text and
that of Scholz bear, " I can do all things through him
who strengthened me."
12th, Finally, (Actr. viii. 37; ix. 5, 6 ; x. 6), Gries-
bacKs text and that of Scholz suppress the B7tk verse
and these words, " It is hard for thee to kick against the
pricks ; and he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord,
what wilt thou have me to do ? " and, " He shall tell
thee what thou oughtest to do."
No doubt, in these passages (I repeat), among the
different readings which the manuscripts present, it will
not be possible to know infallibly which is the one
that ought to be regarded as the primitive text, or the
very word given by God ; but, as to the meaning of
the sentence, our uncertainties will always be circum-
scribed within a very narrow and very clearly defined
field. It is true, that choose I must between one word
and another word between one letter and another
letter ; but there all my doubts are limited, there they
stop: they are not allowed to go any farther! Not only,
in fact, have I the assurance that the rest of the text is
entirely from God; but I further know, that of the two
different readings which the manuscripts present to me,
one is certainly the inspired word. Thus you see how
it stands : here my uncertainties can bear only on the
alternative of two readings, almost always very much
alike ; while, on the contrary, under the system of par-
tial inspiration, the field of our doubts and of our per-
plexities will have no bounds. If the language of the
sacred books has been so far left to the ever fallible
choice of human wisdom and if divine wisdom, which
alone is infallible, have not controlled and guaranteed
it I am exposed incessantly to the temptation of ab-
stracting something from it, modifying something in it,
or adding something to it.
Thus, then, have all the efforts of the adversaries of
BENGEL'S ALARM HOW REMOVED. 195
inspiration to shake our faith by attacks on this side,
only served, as a last result, to confirm it. They have
obliged the Church to follow them in their investiga-
tions, and soon thereafter to precede them in these ;
and what has she found in this pursuit ? Why this :
that the text is still purer than the most godly men "had
ventured to hope ; that the adversaries of inspiration,
and those of the orthodox dogmas, at least in Germany,
have been compelled to admit it. After the labours of
Erasmus, of Stephanus, and of Mill, they hoped to find,
among all the manuscripts of our libraries, readings
more favourable to the Socinian doctrines than those
adopted by the Bezas and the Elzevirs. Many even
thought that the uncertainties would become such, and
the differences so serious, that all the positive evange-
lical doctrines exclusive, as they call them would be
shaken. But it has not been so. The process has now
been brought to a close the complainants have lost
their cause ; the trial having been conducted at their
demand by modern criticism, all the judges, on the
benches of the Rationalists, 1 have with one voice pro-
nounced it a lost case, and that the objectors must go
elsewhere to look out for arguments and complaints.
When this question, respecting the integrity of the
original text, presented itself for the first time to the
excellent and learned Bengel, more than a hundred and
twenty years ago, he was dismayed at the thought of it;
it gave his upright and godly soul profound distress. Then
did there commence on his part those labours of sacred
criticism, which gave a new direction to that science
among the Germans. The English had preceded the
Germans in it ; but the latter soon got before them.
At last, after long researches, Bengel, in 1721, happy
and reassured, wrote to his disciple Reus: "Eat simply
the bread of the Scriptures as it presents itself to thee ;
and do not distress thyself at finding here and there a
small particle of sand which the millstone may have
1 Read Michaelis, vol. ii. p. 266. Eichhorn, Einleitung, 2 th. S.
700. Edit. Lips.", 1824.
198 ALL CHURCHES HAVE THE SAME GREEK TESTAMENT,
left in it. Thou mayst, then, dismiss all those doubts
which at one time so horribly tormented myself. If the
Holy Scriptures which have been so often copied, and
which have passed so often through the faulty hands of
ever fallible men were absolutely without variations,
the miracle would be so great, that faith in them would
no longer be faith. I am astonished, on the contrary,
that the result of all those transcriptions has not been a
much greater number of different readings." The co-
medies of Terence alone have presented thirty thou-
sand ; and yet these are only six in number, 1 and they
have been copied a thousand times less often than the
New Testament.
How shall we not recognize the mighty intervention
of God in this unanimous accord of all the religious
societies of the East and of the "West! Every where
the same Scriptures! What distances separate Chris-
tians from Jews in their worship! And yet, walk into
our schools of learning, examine our Hebrew Testa-
ments ; then go into their synagogues, ask their rabbis
to show you their sacred rolls you will there find the
same books, without the difference of a letter ! "What
distances separate, in their worship, the Reformed
Christians from the members of the Roman sect ! And
yet, pursue your search, you will find in our respective
schools the same Greek Testament, without the differ-
ence of an iota ! We take theirs as they take ours
Erasmus or Beza, Ximenes or Mill, Scholz or Gries-
bach ! What distances, further, separate the Latin
Church from the Greek Church which also calls itself
catholic, but orthodox, apostolic daughter of Antioch.
and condemning the Romans as rebellious and schisma-
tical sons ! And yet, ask both for their sacred texts, no
more will you find here any difference; here the va-
rious readings will not at all make two schools that
distinguish them ; here the same manuscripts will be
consulted the priests and the pope, Munich and Mos-
1 Archives du Christianisme, torn. vii. No. 17. - Wiseman's Dis-
courses on the Relations of Science, &c., vol. ii. p. 189.
ERRORS OF REASONING OR OF DOCTRINE. 197
cow, will make you hear one and the same testimony.
The necessary result, then, has been, that we all
Greeks, Latins, and Protestants should have among
us the same sacred hook of the New Testament, with-
out the difference of a single iota !
We have said enough on this great fact. We have
felt it right merely to glance at it for the purpose of
repelling an objection, since it took us away from our
subject. What we had undertaken was to prove a
doctrine to wit, the primary inspiration of Holy
Scripture ; and some have thought they could oppose
us by urging, that, even were this doctrine true, it
would be deprived of all effect by the alterations which
Holy Scripture must have undergone. We behoved to
show that these alterations are a vain and harmless
phantom. While engaged in establishing a doctrine,
we have already said, we have been led to write a
history. We would now, then, return to the doctrine.
Nevertheless, before returning to it, we must once more
conclude, that not only was the Scripture inspired on
the day when God caused it to be written, but that we
possess this word inspired eighteen hundred years ago ;
and that we may still, while holding our sacred text in
one hand, and in the other all the readings collected by
the learned in seven hundred manuscripts, 1 exclaim,
with thankfulness, I hold in my hands my Father's
testament, the eternal word of my God !
SECTION IV.
ERRORS OP REASONING OB OS 1 DOOTEINB.
We abandon the various readings, other opponents
will say ; and we own that one may regard the sacred
text as the original language of the prophets and the
apostles. But this very text, intact as it is, we cannot
study without being compelled to recognise in it the
1 Scholz has quoted 674 for the gospel alone.
198 THE SCRIPTURES UNJUSTLY REPROACHED.
part that has heen taken in it by human weakness.
We find there reasonings ill conducted or ill wound
up, quotations ill applied, popular superstitions, pre-
judices, and other infirmities all this heing the un-
avoidable tax which the simplicity of the men of God
had to pay to the ignorance, on various points, of their
times and of their condition. " St Paul," St Jerome
himself has said, 1 " does not know how to develop a
hyperbaton, or how to conclude a sentence ; and as he
had to do with rude, uncultivated persons, he has
availed himself of conceptions which (if he had not
taken care to let us know beforehand that he spoke
after the manner of men) might have given umbrage
to persons of good sense." Such, then, being the marks
of human infirmity which we can trace in the Scrip-
tures, it remains an impossibility to recognise in such
a book an inspiration that has descended even to the
smallest details of their language.
To these charges brought against the Scriptures our
reply is fourfold.
1 . First of all, we protest, with the utmost force of
our convictions, against such reproaches. We main-
tain, that a more attentive and a more serious study of
the Word of God would reduce them to nothing ; and
we protest, that they have no foundation but in the
errors and the precipitation of those who advance them
This we could demonstrate, by repelling, one by one,
all these charges, in each of the cases in which they
have been sought to be renewed. It would prove a
task more long than difficult, and we cannot find room
for it here, for its details would be endless. There is
not, in fact, a line of argument there is not a quota-
tion there is not a doctrine which the adversaries of
the inspiration of the Scriptures have not at various
times made a subject for reproaches; and it is well
1 Comment, on the Ep. to the Galatians (book ii.),to Titus (book i
on i. 1), and to the Ephes. (book ii. on iii. 1.1
INCONSISTENCY OP THE OBJECTORS. 199
enough known that the greater part of objections that
can be stated clearly in three words, require three pages
for a clear refutation. It is necessary, therefore, that
in proportion as the men of the world recommence
their attacks, the Church should renew her replies ;
and that, like those respectful and indefatigable ser-
vants who, among the Eastern nations, watch day and
night near the face of their king, she stand constantly
by the side of the Word of her God, to repel those
swarms of objections, which are no sooner seen to be
driven off than they re-appear by another Avay, and
incessantly return to plant some sting in it anew. Be-
fore inquiry and this the experience of all ages, and
in particular that of these last times, has sufficiently
shown before inquiry, those difficulties which some
would object to the Scriptures are smoothed away ;
those obscurities burst into light ; and erelong unex-
pected harmonies, beauties which no human eye had
till then suspected, reveal themselves in the Word of
God, by means of those very objections. Though to-
day objects of doubt, to-morrow, when better studied,
they would become to you motives to faith : to-day,
subjects that distract and perplex you; to-morrow
they would become proofs to convince and assure you.
2. Meanwhile we have no wish to evade any one of
these charges brought against the Scriptures by the ad-
versaries of the full inspiration of that sacred book, for
it is an advantage which they give us. Yes, and we
are not afraid to say it : on hearing such objections, we
feel ourselves at one and the same time under the too
opposite impressions of satisfaction and of sadness ; of
sadness at seeing persons who acknowledge the Bible
to be a revelation from God, not afraid, notwithstanding,
to bring so hastily the most serious accusations against
it j and of satisfaction, from considering with what force
such language confirms the doctrine which we defend.
In the mouth of a deist, they would be objections,
and we behoved to reply; but in that of the Christians
19
200 TEMERITY OF THE OBJECTORS.
who advance them, they involve a flagrant abandon-
ment of their own proper principle, and an admission
of all the evil to be found in that abandonment.
Let us not be misunderstood : it is not at the bar of
professed infidels that we here maintain the plenary
inspiration of the Scriptures; it is before men who say
that they hold the Bible to be a revelation from God.
Inspiration, we have told them, is a doctrine written
down in that sacred book : according to its own testi-
mony, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God; it
is perfect, it is pure, it is silver seven times refined.
"What has been their reply ? They do not reject, they
say, such an inspiration except with regard to the lan-
guage, the forms of discourse and unimportant details;
they believe, moreover, that a continual providence
directed the minds of the sacred writers, to preserve
them from all serious error. But how do they prove
this position ? Is it to the language only, is it to the
forms of discourse, is it to insignificant details, that they
object? Alas! let us hear their own words: In the
doctrines there are superstitions ; in the quotations there
are things misapprehended ; in the reasonings there are
weak points ! You see, then, it is thus that, in order to
attack the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, they
descend into the ranks of the unbelievers who cast
stones at the Word of God; and if they will not ven-
ture, like them, to take away God from the Holy Bible,
they would fain at least rectify God's errors in the Holy
Bible. Which of these two attempts would be the most
outrageous, it were hard to say.
We conclude, therefore, that since it is impossible to
combat plenary inspiration without charging the Word
of God with error, we must necessarily cleave ever
more and more to this sentence of Scripture, that " all
Scripture is given by inspiration of God."
3. But we have to call attention to a still more seri-
ous view of the matter. We ask, Where do they mean
to stop in the course they have begun ? And by what
WHERE WOULD THE OBJECTORS STOP ? 201
reasons would they stop those, in their turn, \vho would
fain advance farther than they are willing to go ? They
make bold to correct one saying of God's Word; what
right, then, have they to censure those who would rec-
tify all the rest? Creatures of a day, during* which
they fleet through this world, with the everlasting hook
of God in their hands, they are foolhardy enough to
say to him : This, Lord, is worthy of thee, this is not
worthy of thee ! They make bold of themselves to sift
God's oracles, to assign a share in them to the folly of
man, to separate in them from the thought of the divine
mind, proofs of ignorance shown by Isaiah and Moses,
the prejudices of St Peter and St Jude, the paralogisms
of St Paul, the superstitions of St John ! Lamentable
temerity ! We repeat it : Where will they stop in this
fatal task ? for they proceed to take their seats at the
same table where the Socinuses, the Grimaldis, and the
Priestleys occupy one side, and the Eousseaus, the
Volneys, and the Dupuis the other. Betwixt them
and Eichhorn, betwixt them and William Gobbet,
betwixt them and Strauss, where will you find the
difference ? It is in the species, not in the genus. It
is in the quantity, and no longer in the quality,
of imputations of error and tokens of irreverence.
There is a difference in point of hardihood, none at
all in point of profanation. Both pretend to have found
errors in the Word of God ; both take it upon them to
rectify it. But will they tell us, is it less absurd on the
part of a creature to set about correcting in the works
of God the creation of the hyssop that springs from the
wall, than that of the cedar that grows on Lebanon ; to
pretend to rectify the organism of a glow-worm than to
send a supply of light to the sun ? What right have
ministers, who say they see only the language of Jewish
prejudices in what the Evangelists relate about the
demoniacs and the miracles of Jesus Christ in casting
out unclean spirits, what right have they to think it
strange that such or such another person should see in
*;he miracles of the conversion of St Paul, of the resur-
202 WIRGMANN'S DIVARICATION.
rection, of the multiplication of the loaves, or of the
day of Pentecost, no more than an useful and sage
complaisance for the ignorant minds of a people that
were fond of the marvellous ? What right would a
professor, who should deny the inspiration of the rea-
sonings of St Paul, have to blame M. de Wette for
rejecting that of the prophecies of the Old Testament, 1
or M. Wirgmann for proceeding to his Divarication of
the New Testament? or M. Strauss, for changing into
myths the miracles, and even the person of Jesus Christ?
Three or four years ago, a young Bernese minister
gave us a reading of a manual of theology, which, he
said, had been put into his hands in one of the acade-
mies of Eastern Switzerland. We have forgotten the
name of the author, together with that of his residence :
but having at the tune taken a note of his principal
arguments against the plenary inspiration of the Scrip-
tures, we can reproduce here the quotations by which
he sought to prove that the sacred books, as they con-
tained evident errors, could not be altogether the Word
of God. The reader will understand that we cannot
stop here to reply to him. All we wish to do is merely
to give one an idea of the measure of these temerities.
" St Paul speaks of ' having delivered an incestuous
person over to Satan.' (1 Cor. v. 5.) Could this pas-
sage (fanatical no doubt) have been inspired ? "
" He tells them that ' we shall judge the angels/ (1
Cor. vi. 3). A gnostic reverie, no doubt. Could such
a passage be inspired ? "
" He even goes so far as to tell them that, ' in con-
sequence of their unworthy communions, many among
them are sick, and some are dead.' (1 Cor. xi. 30.) This
passage cannot be inspired ! "
1 This was his opinion some years ago. We know not whether
this professor, whose learning and candour we have admired in his
translation of the New Testament, has not withdrawn such assertions.
2 This is the title of his book (translated from the English by
Lambert, Paris, 1838.) " He says he understands by it, the sepa-
ration of the New Testament into Word of God or moral precepts,
and word of man or facts of the sensible world."
ZURICH PREPARED FOR STRAUSS. 203
"He tells them, further, ' that in Adam all die.' (1
Cor. xv. 22.) Judaical superstition ! It is impossible
that snch a passage can be inspired ! "
"And when St Paul assures theThessalonians (iThes.
iv. 15), which St James repeats (James v. 8), ' that the
coming of the Lord draweth nigh,' could so manifest
an error he inspired ?" *
It is thus, then, that men dare to sit in judgment on
the eternal Word ! "We still remain unaware, we have
said, if these doctrines, professed in Switzerland ten or
twelve years ago, were so professed at Zurich more than
elsewhere. But if they were actually in vogue there,
then one must excuse, alas ! the magistrates of that
city, if we would not deal unfairly by them. It was
not they who called Strauss into their country, in order
to subvert the faith of a whole people there ; for Strauss
was already in their professors' chairs, if such teachers
delivered their opinions from them. They had seen
them with ample scissors in hand, cutting out from the
Scriptures the errors of the apostles. What difference
could they perceive betwixt such men and the man they
called ? A little more learning, boldness, consistency,
in following out his principles ; and in his more prac-
tised hand, a longer and sharper instrument ; but hardly
more heartfelt contempt for the Scriptures of God !
Among the judges of the Sanhedrim who smote Jesus
on the face we should make little difference as to the
number of blows they severally dealt ; and when sixty
conspirators in the palace of Pompey threw down
Caesar from his throne of gold in the midst of the
senate, Casca, who first grazed him with his sword, was
no less his murderer than Cassius, who clove his head,
or than the sixty conspirators, who on all sides drew
i We hare not felt ourselves called upon to answer such charges.
It would be going out of our subject. The Lord's coming is nigh to
each of us : from one instant to another, three sighs separate us
from it. When a man dies he is immediately transported to the
day of Jesus Christ. As for the distance of that day relatively to
this world, see in the 2d chap, of the 2d. Ep. to the Thess. if the
apostle Paul deceived himself about it.
204 VANITY AND IGNORANCE OF MAN.
their swords on him, and pierced him with twenty-three
wounds. Is the doctor, then, who denies the inspira-
tion of an argument or of a doctrine of the Scriptures,
less in revolt against the God of the Scriptures than the
man who rejects the inspiration of a whole book ? We
think not.
We conclude, that since the man who denies the
plenary inspiration of the Scriptures necessarily enters
on the career of daring temerities, and gives the signal,
by the first thrust of his sword, for all the revolts that
may follow against the Word of God, we must, once
more, look more narrowly to that saying of the Holy
Ghost : " All Scripture is given by inspiration of
God."
But we have one last reflection farther to make.
4. You do not, it seems, comprehend the divinity,
the propriety, the wisdom, the utility of such or such
a passage of the Scriptures; and, on that account,
you deny their inspiration ! Is this an argument that '
can have any real value, we do not say in our eyes,
but in yours ? Who are you ? " Keep thy foot when
thou goest into the house of God," feeble child of man,
" and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of
fools : for they consider not the evil that they do. Be
not rash with thy mouth : God is in heaven, and thou
upon earth." 1 Who art thou, then, who wouldst judge
the oracles of God ? Hath not the Scripture itself told
us beforehand, that* it would be to some a stumbling-
block, and to others foolishness ; 2 that the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, and thai
he cannot even do so, and that they are spiritually dis-
cerned? 8 Ought you not, therefore, to expect to feel
at first some repugnance in mind, in heart, in conscience,
even to its first teachings? Man must first return to
his place as a weak, ignorant, and demoralized crea-
ture ! He cannot comprehend God until he has hum-
Eccles. v. I, 2. si Cor. i, 23. 8 1 Cor. ii. J4.
RECKLESS TREATMENT OF THE SCRIPTURES. 205
bled himself. Let him go and cast himself upon his
knees in his closet ; let him pray, and he will compre-
hend what it means ! An argument is ill grounded,
because you do not seize its scope ! a doctrine is a pre-
judice, because you do not admit it ! a quotation is not
to the point, because its true meaning has escaped you !
What would remain in the world, were God to leave
nothing there but what you could explain ? The Em-
perors of Rome, incapable of understanding either the
lives or the faith of our martyrs, threw them to the wild
beasts in the amphitheatre, and had their bodies drag-
ged to the Tiber. It is thus that people strike their
own defective knowledge, like an impure hook, into
the "Word of God, and drag to the public dunghill
whatever they have been unable to understand, and
have condemned !
"While tracing these lines, we are reminded of a teacher
of divinity, in other respects an honourable man, but
imbued with the wisdom of his own age, who set him-
self to prove that the reasonings of St Paul are not
inspired. Now, how went he about to demonstrate this ?
Why, he quoted as a convincing example a passage
(Gal. iii. 16) in which St Paul proposes, not to prove
(mark this well the whole solution lies here), not to
prove, but to APFIKM that the promise made by God to
Abraham and his posterity, regarded not all his poste-
rities (since it was evident enough that his posterities
by Agar, by Keturah, by Esau, were rejected), but one
special, elected and personal posterity. And what think
you the professor did to establish his thesis on this pas-
sage ? Why, he palmed on the apostle an argument so
puerile, that the merest child among the Galatians
might have reproved him for it! St Paul, according
to him, instead of doing no more than affirm a
fact, meant to argue from the singular of a collective
noun that such a word could designate no more than a
single person ! Absurd as it is for us, said he, this
argument might be good for the Jews, or for the gross-
minded Gauls of Asia Minor. We give this example ;
206 THE AUTHOR'S OWN EXPERIENCE.
a hundred more of the same v-alue might easily be pro-
duced.
May the author venture here to refer to his own
experience? He recollects, with no less humiliation
than gratitude, his earliest and his latest impressions
on the Epistles of St Paul. He was enabled, from his
earliest years, to come to the conviction that the Bible
is from God; but he did not yet understand the doc-
trines which it teaches. He wished to respect the
apostle's pages, because he saw^ through other marks,
that the not-to-be-counterfeited seals of the most high
God are suspended there ; but in reading them he was
agitated with a secret uneasiness, which drove him to
other books. St Paul appeared to him to reason wrong
not to go straight to his point ; to discourse in a
round-about and embarrassed manner; to wind about
his subject in long spiral turnings, and to say the things
that were attributed to him quite differently from what
one himself would have wished to have done. In a
word, he felt, in reading them, somewhat of the pain-
ful discomfort of a tenderly affectionate son as he waits
on a declining parent whose memory is beginning to
fail, and who stammers in his attempts to speak.
how anxiously would he conceal from others, and dis-
semble to himself, that his venerated father totters, and
seems no longer to be himself! But no sooner had
Divine grace revealed to us that doctrine of the right-
eousness of faith, which is the burning and shining
flame of the Scriptures, than every word became light,
harmony, and life ; the apostle's reasonings seemed
limpid as the water that flows from the rock; his
thoughts profound and practical; all his epistles a
power of God unto salvation for those who believe
We saw abundant proofs of divinity shine forth from
those very parts of the Scriptures which had long given
us such uneasiness ; and we could say, with the joy of
one who has made a discovery, and with the gratitude
of a tender adoration, as we felt inimitable, and in til
then silent, chords vibrate within us, in unison with
ERRORS IN THE NARRATIVES. 207
the Word of God, " Yes, my God, all the Scriptures
are divinely inspired!"
But people insist.
SECTION V.
ERRORS IN THE NARRATIVES. CONTRADICTIONS IN THE FACTS.
All these just repugnances felt to the reasonings or
the doctrines of the sacred writers, will be abandoned,
we are told, if it must be so, by admitting, that, on
these matters, what is a difficulty for some may be none
at all for others. But, if an appeal he now made to
facts if it be shown that there are manifest contradic-
tions in the narratives of the Bible, in its dates, in its
allusions to contemporary history, in its scriptural quo-
tations we might farther, perhaps, reproach those who
object on the ground of having seen these, with not
being consistent with themselves, and with going farther
in this respect than their own thesis will admit. This,
however, matters not; these, if facts at all, are facts
which cannot be thrown out on any such preliminary
plea, and which no reasoning can destroy* Reasoning
no more destroys facts than it creates them. If, then,
it is added, these contradictions exist, they may, indeed,
convict their thesis of not going far enough ; but they
are three times more relevant against ours, in charging
it with error.
First of all, we acknowledge that, were it true that
there were, as they tell us, erroneous facts and contra-
dictory narratives in the Holy Scriptures, one must
renounce any attempt to maintain their plenary inspira-
tion. But we are not reduced to this : these alleged
errors do not exist.
We admit, no doubt, that, among the numerous at-
tacks made on the smallest details of the narratives of
our sacred books, there are some which, at first sight,
208 SCRIPTURE IMPUGNED AND DEFENDED IN ALL AGES.
may give some embarrassment ; but no sooner do we
look at them more closely than these difficulties are
cleared up and vanish. We proceed to give some
examples of this, and will be careful to select them
from among those which the adversaries of a plenary
inspiration have seemed to regard as the most insur-
mountable.
These we shall preface with some observations.
1. The Scriptures have in all ages had their adver-
saries and their defenders their Celsuses as well as
their Origens their Porphyries as well as their Euse-
biuses their Castellios and their Calvins, their Strausses
arid their Hengstenbergs. It is now sixteen hundred
years since Malchus Porphyry, that learned and spite-
ful Syrian, who lived in Sicily under the reign of
Diocletian, and whom Jerome calls rabidum adversus
Christum canem, 1 wrote fifteen books against Chris-
tianity. In these fifteen books the fourth of which
was directed against the Pentateuch, the twelfth and
the thirteenth against Daniel there was one (the first)
entirely devoted to the bringing together of all the con-
tradictions which, he maintained, he had found in the
Scriptures. 2 From Celsus and Porphyry down to the
English unbelievers of the ISfch century, and from
these down to Strauss, who has had hardly more to do
than copy them, 3 unceasing endeavours have been made
to discover more, by comparing Scripture with Scrip-
ture, line with line, word with word, detail with detail.
It was easy, therefore, to multiply them, and even to
find some that were specious, in a book eminently
anecdotic where narratives of the same events are often
repeated under different forms, by different historians,
1 A rabid dog against Christ. Preface to his Eccles. -writers.
2 T naff is/tSt evfxunji vtritGotip [ufovs r{oi6fai/M>n, says Eusebiug,, in
speaking of him. Euseb. Prepar. Evangel., book x. ch. ix., and
Eusebius' Eccles. Hist. vi. 19.
3 He says himself, that on the criticism of the gospels he had
studied and collected from Celsus to Paulus, and even to the frag-
ments of "Wolfenbuttel.
ALLEGED CONTRADICTIONS. 209
in different circumstances, with manifold objects, and
with more or less extensive developments. After this,
the reader must see that this fifth objection, which is
composed altogether of detached observations, and re-
solves itself into an infinity of minute details, can only
be refuted in detail, and by detached answers. The
matter, accordingly, is inexhaustible. Every passage
has its objection, and every objection its reply. Our
sole general response, then, can only be this Examine,
and the obscurity will vanish.
It is acknowledged, besides, by all parties, that the
alleged contradictions, adduced by the adversaries of
inspiration have not in themselves any religious im-
portance, and bear only on dates, numbers, and other
very minute circumstances. But though incapable of
directly affecting Christian doctrine, they would tend,
nevertheless, not less directly to subvert the plenary
inspiration of the Scriptures. It is necessary, there-
fore, that they should be met. This is what the frien.ds
of religion have done in all ages ; and this is what Mr
Hengstenberg, at Berlin, has lately accomplished with
such honourable success ; it is this, too, which has been
done, in these last times, by Messrs Barrett, Hales, Ge-
rard, Dick, Home, and others, in England.
2. It is very easy to say, in a general manner, and in
a peremptory tone, that there are contradictions in the
Bible; and it has often happened that unreflecting
though pious Christians have not taken the pains to look
narrowly into the matter, and have suffered themselves
to be led away into loose maxims on inspiration, before
having sufficiently studied, on one hand, the general
testimonies of the Scriptures on that doctrine, and, on
the other, the nature of the objections that have been
opposed to them. Then it is that they have been
seen to seek in their own minds, rather than in the
Bible, for a mitigated system of inspiration, such as can
3e reconciled with the alleged existence of some errors
in the "Word of God. Here, in the sixteenth century,
210 EXAMPLES OF ALLEGED CONTRADICTIONS.
lay the doctrine of Socinus, 1 of Castellio, 2 and some
others ; but it was then loudly rejected by all pious men.
''Hoc non est causam tueri adversus atheos" said Francis
Turretine, 8 " sed illam turpiter prodere" " Non est eo
concedendum, ad ea concilianda, ut dicamus codicem
sacrum mendosum"*- said the learned and pious Peter
Martyr, " the wonder of Italy," as Calvin called him.
In our days, the estimable Dr Pye Smith, 5 in Eng-
land, and the worthy bishop of Calcutta, 8 have allowed
themselves to run into statements of opinion which we
deplore, and which they would probably correct had
they to make them again. And at Berlin, the learned
rector of the university, M. Twesten, whom, for his
labours and reputation in other respects, we honour,
has not been afraid to say, in his work on dogmatic
theology, 7 that all is not equally inspired in the holy
Bible ; and that if we refuse to admit that there are
errors in the details of the evangelical narratives, we
throw ourselves into inextricable difficulties in our en-
deavours to explain them. And what examples does
he give, in passing, in justification of such maxims ?
Why, he quotes two of the passages which we are about
to expound, (the first, that of the blind man of Jericho,
the seventh, that of the census taken under Cyrenius).
The reader may judge of the ease with which some can
abandon the testimony which the Scriptures themselves
render to their entire inspiration.
We proceed, then, to give some examples both of the
contradictions which objectors have fancied they could
oppose to us, and of the causes of the precipitation with
which some allow themselves to call certain passages
contradictory ; which, however, only require a little re-
flection in order to their being reconciled.
We have said, and we repeat, that as it is out of our
1 De Autor. Script. * In Dialogis.
8 Th6ol. elencht., torn. i. p. 74. In Reg. viii. 17.
* Defence of Dr Haffner's Preface to the Bible.
6 Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity.
i Vorlesungen uber die Dogmatik, t. i. pp. 421-429, Hamburg, 1829
ILLUSTRATION FROM THE LIFE OF BONAPARTE. 21 1
power to adduce more than a small number here, we
have been at pains to select such as our adversaries have
apparently regarded as the most embarrassing.
In the interval between the first and second edition
of this book, several pious persons have blamed us for
having resolved difficulties which were not such to them,
while we had neglected others which seemed to them
of greater weight. Other readers will, no doubt, pass
a directly contrary judgment on these relative values.
Such appreciations are altogether subjective. None is
judge of the importance that may be attached elsewhere
to his objections on such matters ; so that they present
a boundless field. Still, however, we think it right to
bring under consideration, in this volume, the new
difficulties that have been pointed out to us.]
FIRST CAUSE OF PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT. The com-
plement of the circumstances of two facts which hap-
pened in the East, eighteen hundred years ago, remains
unknown, because the sacred historians relate them to
us with signal brevity. Some persons, nevertheless,
should the narrative not explain to us in what man-
ner some of their traits may be reconciled, are in
haste to declare them contradictory. Nothing is more
irrational. Suppose (to give an instance not from the
Scriptures) that a Hindu pundit happened to read three
succinct histories, all three veridical, of the illustrious
Napoleon. The first will tell him that the capture of
Paris, preceded by much bloodshed at the gates of that
capital, compelled him to abdicate ; and that an Eng-
lish frigate was commissioned to transport him to an
island in the Mediterranean. A second will relate that
this great captain, vanquished by the English, who
made themselves masters of Paris without opposition,
was transported by them to St Helena, whither General
Bertrand desired to follow him, and where he breathed
his last in the arms of that faithful servant. A third
will relate that the fallen emperor was accompanied in
212 THE MEN SEEN AT OUR LORD*S SEPULCHRE.
his exile by Generals Gourgaud, Bertrand, and Mon-
tholon. All these narratives would be true ; and yet,
how many palpable contradictions in these few words!
the learned man of Benares might say. St Helena in
the Mediterranean ! Who knows not that it rises like
a rock in the great ocean ? So much for a first con-
tradiction : one of these books must be false ; we must
reject it. But again : Paris taken without a blow being
struck ! and Paris taken after a bloody battle at the gates !
There is a second. Once more : here we find one general,
there three generals! showing a third contradiction.
Now, compare these supposed precipitate judgments
with many of the objections that hare been started
against the narratives of our Gospels !
First example. Mark (xvi. 5) relates to us, that the
women "saw A YOUNG MAN (only one) sitting on tfie right
side .... who 'said to them, Bo not affrighted. Ye
seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified : he is risen."
And Luke relates (xxiv. 4), that "TWO MEN stood by
them who said to them, Why seek ye tJie living
among the dead? He is not here, lut is. risen."
These passages are objected to as irreconcilable with
each other ; but on what good grounds ? No doubt
there is a difference ; but there is neither contradiction
nor disagreement between the two narratives. If they
are both true, wherefore would you insist on their being
identical ? It is enough that they be true, particularly
in histories so admirably succinct. Does it not often
happen with us, that, without ceasing to be exactly ac-
cordant with truth, we tell, twice in succession to dif-
ferent persons, the same adventure in two very different
manners ? Now, why should the apostles not do as much?
Luke relates, that two personages presented themselves
to the women ; while Mark speaks only of that one
of the two who at first had alone rolled away the stone,
who sat on the right side of the sepulchre, and who
addressed himself to them. It was thus that one of our
(supposed) historians of the Life of Bonaparte spoke
TIIE TWO BLIND MEN BY THR WAYSIDE. 213
of three generals ; while the other, -without ceasing to
be true, spoke only of Bertrand. It is thus that Moses,
after having spoken of three men as appearing to Abra-
ham at Mamre (Gen. xviii.), forthwith confines himself
to speaking of one (ver. 2, 10, 17), as if he had heen
alone. It is thus that, twice in succession, and in a
different manner, I may relate the same circumstance,
without ceasing to be true : " I met three men, who
told me the right way. I met a man, who put me on
the proper road." Thus, though there be in the pas-
sages adduced a marked difference, still there is not
even the semblance of a contradiction.
Second example. Matthew (xx. 30) says that as
Jesus " departed from Jericho, a great multitude folloiced
him. And, behold, two blind men, sitting by the way- side,
when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out, saying,
Have mercy on us !"
And Mark (x. 46) tells us that " as Jesus went out of
Jericho with his disciples, and a great number of people,
blind Bartimeus, the son of Timeus, sat by the high-
way-side begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus
of Nazareth, he began to cry ottt, and say, Jesus, thou
son of David, have mercy on me."
Luke likewise (xyiii. 35) speaks of <me blind mem only.
What is there here, we again ask, contradictory or
incorrect? Of those two blind men whom Jesus, amid
so many other works, healed at Jericho, there was one
more remarkable than the other, better known perhaps
in the country, and who spoke for both. Mark speaks
of him only ; he even goes on to tell us his name ; he
does not assure us that he was alone. Matthew, accord-
ingly, might speak of two. The narratives of the three
evangelists are equally true, without being like each other
throughout. What, then, is there extraordinary in this ?
But, in this same narrative we are told there is a still
greater difficulty ; let us hear it.
This forms a third example. Matthew and Mark re-
214 DEATH OF JUDAS ISCARIOT.
late that the occurrence took place as Jesus departed
from Jericho.
Whereas Luke tells us that it happened as Jesus
drew near to Jericho. Here, once more, people have
been found to exclaim, What a palpable contradiction !
We must reply, How would you prove this ? what
know you about it ? The details of this fact being un-
known to you, how could you possibly demonstrate that
they are irreconcilable ? While it is veiy easy, on the
contrary, by the simplest supposition, to make them agree ?
Luke, as he does so often in every part of his Gos-
pel, has united in his narrative two successive circum-
stances of the same event. Mark well that he is the
only one of the three historians who makes mention of
the first question put by Bartimeus : " And hearing the.
multitude pass by, he asked what it meant." This ques-
tion the blind man put before the entrance of Jesus into
Jericho. Being then made aware who this great pro-
phet was, whom hitherto he had not known, he fol-
lowed him, and during our Lord's repast in the house
of Zaccheus, took his place in the crowd that waited for
his coming out. It was then that there was announced
to him that "Jesus of Nazareth passed by" (these words
are in St Luke). He followed him long thus ; he was
joined by the other blind man ; and their cure was per-
formed only when Jesus, on his way to Jerusalem, left
Jericho, where he had stopped only for the purpose of
being the guest of the happy Zaccheus. This very
simple explanation instantly removes the alleged discre-
pancy of the three texts.
fourth example. Matthew (in his 27th chapter
verse 5) says that Judas " hanged himself; " St Peter, in
the Acts (i. 18), says that "falling headlong, he burst
asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out"
Here, again, we have been told, there is a contradic-
tion.
We remember that once, at a public conference at
Geneva, where we defended this same thesis, our much-
DISAGREEING NUMERICAL CALCULATIONS. 215
valued friend, professor Monod, at that time pastor at
Lyons, adduced the analogous traits of a lamentable
death of which he had almost been witness. An un-
happy inhabitant of that city, in order to make the
surer of committing suicide, and to give himself a double
death, having seated himself outside of a fourth-storey
window, fired a pistol into his mouth. The same re-
later of that sad event, said he might have given three
different accounts of it, and all three correct. In the first
he might have reported the whole that had happened ;
in the second, he might have said the man shot himself;
and, in the third, he threw himself from a window and
was killed.
Such, also, was the self-inflicted punishment by which
the unhappy Judas departed into his own place. He
hanged himself, and fell headlong ; he burst asunder, in
the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. One single par-
ticular more on the frightful circumstances of one same
death, would have showed us the connection. It has
not been given to us ; but who will venture, on that
account, to maintain that here there is a contradiction ?
Fifth example. Here ought to be placed the greater
number of those cases where different numerical cal-
culations may seem to disagree, such as that of the
talents of gold brought from Ophir to King Solomon
(1 Kings ix. 28 ; 2 Chron. viii. 18); that of the census
taken of the Israelites in the days of David (2 Sam.
xxiv. 9 ; 1 Chron. xxi. 5) ; that of the children of the
patriarch Jacob, transported into Egypt (Gen. xlvi. 27 ;
Deut. x. 22 ; Acts vii. 14), &c.
One single additional -.circumstance in these rapid
narratives would have instantly furnished the reconcilia-
tion required. King Solomon might, in the one case,
reckon his gross revenues ; and, in the other, deduct
thirty talents for the expenses of the fleet. David's cen-
sus might present two results, according as the ordinary
and already numbered militia of the kingdom was in-
cluded or left out f 288,000 men with their officers of all
20
21 6 ALLEGED MISQUOTATION BY ST MATTHEW.
ranks.) (2 Chron. xxvii. I ; 2 Sain, xxiii. 8.) Finally,
you might have sixty-six, seventy, or seventy-five per-
sons as the patriarch's family, according as you reckon
in it, or do not reckon, on the one hand, Jacob with
Joseph and his two sons ; on the other, Er, Onan, and
Dinah ; or again, the wives of the eleven patriarchs.
We enter not into the combination of these details; we
need only to point them out.
Sixth example. St Matthew, in his 27th chapter
(verses 9, 10), quotes as those of Jeremiah words not to
be found in the book of that prophet. " Then" says he,
" was fulfilled that which was spoken ly Jeremy the pro-
phet, saying r , And they took the thirty pieces of silver ',
the price of him thai was valued, whom they of the
children of Israel did value."
Here, it has been said, what an evident error . these
words are met with only in the book of Zechariah
(xi. 13).
We do not answer, with Augustine, that as several
Greek manuscripts have only these words, " Then was
fulfilled that which was spoken l>y the prophet" " one
might say that the reference is to one of those who did
not bear the name of Jeremiah." 1 It is true, that even
at this day, among the Greek manuscripts of our lib-
raries, there are two which have not the name of that
prophet ; and that, among the most ancient versions,
the Syrian and the Persian have it not. This solution,
however, does not appear to us conformable to the ordi-
nary rules of sacred criticism ; and Augustine him-
self candidly admits that it does not satisfy him, seeing
that, even in his time, the greater number of Latin
copies, and of Greek copies, bore in this sentence the
name of Jeremiah.
Some learned men, consequently, presume that this
name may have easily slipt into the text by some rais-
1 Possumus ergo dicere Iris potius codicibus ease credendum qui
Jeremise nomen non habent. (De consensu Evang. lib. iii. cap. 7.)
HOW IT MAY BEST BE EXPLAINED. 21?
take ; and that the copyists, having noticed on the
margin the letters Zou (signifying in abridgment the
name of Zechariah), aud having mistaken them for
' lou, had slipped it into the text, thinking what they saw
was the name Jeremiah. Meanwhile, even this expla-
nation does not satisfy us any better, for it. rests on a
mere hypothesis gratuitously opposed to the testimony
of the manuscripts, and opens a door for the admission
of rash alterations. Our safety must ever lie in having
the manuscripts respected.
. I prefer, therefore, Whitby's explanation, which is as
follows : " We know," says he, " from St Jerome, that
there was still extant in his time, an apocryphal hook
of the prophet Jeremiah, in which was found every
letter of the words quoted by St Matthew." 1 We know
also that the Second Book of Maccabees (ii. 1-9)
relates many of the actions and words of Jeremiah,
which are taken from another book than that of his
canonical prophecies. Why, then, might not the words
quoted by the evangelist have been pronounced really
by Jeremiah, and have remained in the memory of the
Church to the days of Zechariah, who might then have
again given them a place theopneustically in holy Scrip-
ture, (as is the case with the unwritten words of Enoch,
quoted in the Epistle of Jude, 3 or the unwritten words
of Jesus Christ, quoted by St Paul in the Book of the
Acts?) 8 What confirms this supposition is, that part
only of the words quoted by St Matthew are found in
Zechariah. Besides, it is known that this prophet was
fond of recalling the words of Jeremiah.* The Jews
used to say that the spirit of Jeremiah was in Zecha-
riah, and that the two prophets made only one. Mede
thought it very probable that the 9th, 10th, and llth
chapters of Zechariah were written in the first instance
by Jeremiah. Now, it is in the last of these chapters
1 Legi nuper, in quodam Hebraico volumine quod Nazarense sectae
Hebrseus mihi obtulit, Hieremiae apocryphum, in quo haec ad ver-
tum scripta reperi. (Hieron. in Matt, xxvii.)
Verses 14 and 15. Acts xr. 35.
4 See Zeeh i. 4, and Jer. xviii. 11; Zech. iii. 8, and Jer. zxiii. 4.
218 OUR LORD'S RESURRECTION.
that we find the words quoted by St Matthew. That
evangelist, therefore, could quote them as those of
Jeremiah, in like manner as the apostle Jude has quoted
as those of Enoch the words of his 14th and 15th
verses.
Seventh example. Many difficulties have heen started
of late, especially in Germany, on the fourfold narrative
given us of our LorcFs resurrection.
For the sake of briefness we shall treat of the whole
four accounts at once, taking care to distinguish them,
in both objection and reply, by corresponding letters.
A. According to St Luke (it has been said), the
women of Galilee, on their return from the sepulchre,
had prepared their spices before the Sabbath (Luke
xxiii. 56); while according to St Mark (xvi. 1,2), they
bought them only on the Saturday evening, after the
expiration of that sacred repose.
B. The reading of St Matthew gives us to understand
that these women were Mary of Magdala and the other
Mary ; while there must have been, besides, Salome,
according to Mark (xvi. 1) ; and even, according to
Luke (xxiv. 10), there must further have been Joanna,
and others, with them.
C. According to Mark (xvi. 2) they went to the se-
pulchre " at the rising of the sun : " according to John
(xx. 1) "it was yet dark."
D. If (according to St Matthew alone) the Jews had
set men to guard the sepulchre, one can hardly com-
prehend how these women should risk visiting it, and
think of opening it.
E. According to Matthew (xxviii. 5) and Mark
(xvi. 5), the women saw only one angel at the sepulchre ;
they saw two according to St Luke (xxiv. 4).
OUR LORD'S RESURRECTION. 219
F. According to Matthew (xxviii. 8) and Luke
(xxiv. 9, 1 0), the "women, on departing from the sepul-
chre, " with fear and great joy," ran to tell the disciples
what they had seen ; whereas, according to Mark (xvi.
8), they fled ; " they trembled and were amazed ; neither
said they any thing to any man, for they were afraid."
G. If, according to the first and the third Gospels,
the women informed the disciples of what had passed
(Matt, xxviii. 8 ; Luke xxiv. 9), according to the
fourth, Simon Peter and John alone were informed.
H. According to the three first Gospels, Mary of
Magdala, on reaching the sepulchre, saw two angels,
who informed her of the resurrection of Jesus ; while
according to St John (xx. 2), she had contented herself
with saying to the disciples, " They have taken away
the Lord out of the sepulchre ! " and said nothing either
about his resurrection or even about the angels. " We
know not where they have laid him ! " she adds.
I. According to Luke (xxiv. 12), it would appear
that Peter, on being told, ran alone to the sepulchre ;
according to John, there was with Peter " that other
disciple whom the Lord loved " (xx. 2).
K. If you attend to the three first evangelists only,
several women seem to have witnessed the appearance
of the angels and the resurrection of Jesus ; while from
reading St John, you would believe that Mary of Mag-
dala alone was honoured with these revelations.
L. According to Luke (xxiv. 23, 24), and even ac-
cording to John (xx. 2), Mary and the women, on
returning from the sepulchre, merely told the disciples
of the removal of the body of Jesus, and of their having
seen the angels ; they had not seen the Lord himself ;
while according to Matthew (xxviii. 9), Jesus had
appeared to them " while they were yet in the way."
220 APPARENT CONTRADICTIONS EXPLAINED.
Here, then, we are told there are eleven contradictions,
which do not, it is true, affect the essence of the sacred
narrative, and which ought not by any means to affect
our faith, hut which rise irresistibly to testify against
the alleged fact of an entire divine inspiration.
This objection, we will avow it, appeared to us too
ill-founded, and to have been too often solved already,
to find a place in the first -edition of this work. Never-
theless it has been reproduced against us, and we have
thought proper to make a reply .^
The day of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, for the
disciples, began with the first dawnings of morning
(John xx. 1), and was lengthened out to midnight
(Luke xxiv. 29, 33, 36). The sepulchre where their
Lord had been laid was not far from where they dwelt,
seeing that at this day it is placed within the circuit of
modern Jerusalem. Thus the disciples and the women
may have repaired thither often, and in various ways,
during the course of that incomparable Sunday. But
as each of the four evangelists imposed on himself a
marvellous brevity in relating that event, it is quite na-
tural that at the first aspect their narratives should pre-
sent, on the innumerable incidents of the day, an appa-
rent confusion. Each was called upon to relate the
truth, and nothing but the truth; but none of them was
bound to tell the whole; and owing to this conciseness,
you may not at once perceive their perfect agreement.
They relate, each for himself, according to one special
point of view, and without embarrassing himself about
a reconciliation which they knew lay in the reality of
the facts. What more would you have ? One speaks
specially of Mary Magdalene, for .to her Jesus desired
to make his first appearance; the other of Peter, because
Jesus made himself appear to him notwithstanding his
crime, and because he was called to occupy a leading
place in the Church of God ; two others, of the astonish-
ing meeting on the road to Emmaus, because that mani
festation was the most significant and the most aifect-
BREVITY OF THE EVANGELISTS, 221
ing ; three others, in fine, of his appearing to the eleven,
because these were to be the foundations and the pillars
of the Church.
Moreover, you can perceive in their writings several
iraits which sufficiently indicate that, in giving an
account of -certain scenes, they knowingly abstain from
mentioning others, the remembrance of which was no
less dear to them, but which it was necessary to omit
introducing, in order that their Gospels might be di-
vinely short. Let us give some examples.
1. You will hear St Paul* reminding the Corinthians
(1. Cor. xv. 5) that Jesus "was seen first by Cephas,
and then by the twelve;" yet, not one of the four
evangelists has told us of this appearance of Jesus to
Simon Peter. Certainly it is well that it so happens
that we read afterwards in St Luke (xxiv. 34) these
words, said in passing, " The Lord hath appeared unto
Simon." "Without this expression (which occurs only
casually in a conversation among the eleven and Cleo-
pas), the adversaries of inspiration would not have
failed to say that Paul was mistaken as to this fact, and
that he had been a careless reader of his Gospels, seeing
that not a word is said of this appearance in their four-
fold account of the resurrection.
2. It is thus, too, that St Luke, who (at the 12th
verse) speaks only of Peter, takes care, however, to
make the disciples of Emmaus say afterwards, " Cer-
tain of them that were with us went to the sepul-
chre."
3. It is thus, also, that St Mark, who does not men-
tion either the appearing of Jesus to the women or to
Simon Peter, takes care, however, to insert in his ac-
count (xvi. 9) a very few words which give us to un-
derstand that there were other manifestations, of which
he was not to speak. " Jesus," says he, " appeared first
( first !) to Mary of Magdala."
222 VARIOUS SUPPOSITIONS.
4> Finally, it is thus that St John, whose sole pur-
pose it was to complete the preceding Gospels, and who
speaks only of Mary Magdalene, informs us, by a simple
pronoun, that she, notwithstanding, was not alone :
" They have taken away the Lord, and WE KNOW NOT
WHERE THEY HAVE LAID HIM."
Thus, then, in order to establish contradiction among
the different parts of the quadruple statement, it were
necessary that they should be proved irreconcilable with
all the suppositions one must make on the unknown
connecting links of the events of the day. But who
can do this ? On the contrary, it is easy to figure for
ourselves the sequence of events in such a manner as
that the separate details of the narrative should come to
agree with each other. This is what several persons
have attempted with success, and in different ways ; so
far is the problem from being incapable of being solved.
All that was necessary for this, was to make different
but equally admissible suppositions on the number and
the sequence of the visits made to the tomb by Mary,
the disciples, and the women. Olshausen, Hess, and
Griesbach, reconcile the difficulties by assuming that at
daybreak Mary of Magdala, while on the way to the
sepulchre, parted from her companions, and arrived
first. John Le Clerc figured to himself rather that
Mary, coming to the sepulchre a second time, with the
two apostles, remained longer than them near the tomb,
and that the other disciples went home. Hengsten-
berg has made other suppositions, more simple perhaps,
and not less acceptable.
Such hypotheses, shall we be told, do not necessarily
do away with the contradiction they only show that
possibly there may be none. What would we have
more? The adversaries of inspiration only in their
turn make contrary hypotheses.
Now, then, instead of replying separately to each of
the eleven objections above adduced, we will content
ourselves with exhibiting the course of events, such as
ALLEGED CONTRADICTIONS DISSIPATED. 223
we may conceive it to hav r e been, according to the four
accounts taken as a whole. What we give is very nearly
the arrangement proposed hy John Le Clerc in his
" Evangelical Harmony." 1 Others will prefer, perhaps,
that lately proposed by Olshausen, in his " Biblical
Commentary," 2 or that which Hengstenberg more
recently still has exhibited in his " Evangelical Ga-
zette." 8 But it is of no consequence. Our account, it
will be seen, dissipates, one after another, the eleven
alleged contradictions. (The same letters that distin-
guish them in the objection, will be re- inserted here
before the particulars that correspond with them, and
serve to solve them.)
A. Jesus had yielded up the ghost on the cross on
Friday evening, at the ninth hour of the day. The
Sabbath, which began three hours later, was doubly
solemn (being both the weekly and the paschal Sab
bath). As it grew late (Matt, xxvii. 46, 57 ; Mark xv
34, 42), Joseph of Arimathea went to ask from Pilate
the body of the crucified one. He obtained it, and, ac-
companied by Nicodemus, who saw to there being taken
to the sepulchre about a hundred- weight of myrrh and
aloes (John xix. 39) ; he bought a pall, had the body of
Jesus taken down, wound it in linen clothes with the
spices (John xix. 40), and wrapped it in a winding-
sheet, (Luke xxiii, 53 ; Mark xv. 4(5 ; Matt, xxvii. 59) ;
then at last, for want of time, he hastened to deposit it in
a sepulchre not far from Golgotha. One will see, there-
fore, that the godly women (who had beheld from a
distance these funereal scenes, down to the moment
when a huge stone was placed on the entrance to the
tomb), had very little time for going home and prepar-
ing the perfumes which they had at their disposal.
The Sabbath was about to commence ; and whatever
might be, in their eyes, the sacred nature of their occu-
' Pag. 224-231. Lugduni, 1620.
a Z wetter Band, p. 517, Koenigsberg, 1834.
' Evangel. Kirehen-Zeitung, Aug. 1841, 489-523.
21
224: CONSISTENCY OP THE EVANGELICAL NARRATIVES.
pations, they ceased from them from the time of sunset ;
nothing could withdraw them from the repose and
silence of that day (^ffu^affav, Luke xxiii. 56). But as
soon as it was over (that is to say, on Saturday at six
o'clock at night), they ran to purchase aromatics to
complete the pious preparations which they had heen
able only to commence. This funereal operation re-
quired a very considerable quantity of myrrh, aloes, and
other substances ; and, no doubt, in the evening, they
could not have seen, from such a distance, that Nicode-
mas had already deposited in the sepulchre as much as
a hundred-weight of perfumes.
Thus far, then, all is perfectly consistent ; and it is
by these touching details that Luke and Mark desired,
each on his own side, to give prominence to the humble
respect of these godly women for the law of the Sab-
bath ; the one (Luke xxiii. 56), by showing how sub-
missively they at once intermitted the most sacred cares;
and the other (Mark xvi. 1), with what scrupulous
attention they resumed them only at the hour when they
were again at liberty to work.
B. Meanwhile they left their homes to go to the se-
pulchre. John names Magdalene only, because Jesus
Christ had chosen her to be the first witness of the
greatest of his miracles, and because she was the essen-
tial actor in his narrative. He takes care, however, to
make her say, " We know not where they have laid
him" (xx. 2) ! In general, the evangelists show little
anxiety about accumulating testimonies. And if the
appearance with which the holy women were favoured
had not been the first, it is probable that the sacred
historians would not even have mentioned it. This is
what we might conclude, by analogy, from Paul's mode
of procedure (1 Cor. xv.'S, 8), who speaks only of the
apostles, and says not a word about the women. His
complete silence sufficiently explains to us the partial
silence of the evangelists. 1
1 This is a remark of Hengstenberg's. Wo recommend his disser-
OUR LORD'S RESURRECTION. 225
C. It was still almost night (John xvi. 1), when the
women left their residence, carrying the spices, to go to
the sepulchre (l/ rl f^v^eiov, Mark xvi. 3) ; hut the
sun had risen on their reaching it (iirl rbfjjvq/Aeiov, Mark
xvi. 2). "We know that in those southern latitudes,
the evening and morning twilights are of very short
duration.
D. They asked themselves on the way how they
should roll away the huge stone that covered the mouth
of the sepulchral cave. (Mark xvi. 3.) During the re-
pose and the silence of the Sahbath (Luke xxiii. 56),
how could they have known that guards had been ap-
pointed ? (Matt, xxvii. 66 )
E. Meanwhile there had been an earthquake. (Matt,
xxviii. 2.) An angel, whose countenance was like
lightning, and his raiment white as snow, had come
from heaven and rolled away the stone. The guards
were overcome with fear, and, after having become as
dead men, fled. But what was not the astonishment
of the. women, when, on reaching the tomb, they found
it open and empty ! Only one young man, clothed in
white, sat in the sepulchre, on the right side. (Mark
xvi. 5.) Then two men presented themselves in shining
raiment (Luke xxiv. 4) ; these were angels (Mark and
Matthew mentioning only the one that had rolled away
the stone, and spoken to them).
F. Meanwhile, these holy women, hastening out of
the sepulchre, fled, being overcome with feelings at once
of terror and joy. (Matt, xxviii. 8 ; Mark xvi. 8.) In
tation to readers desirous of a more ample explanation. In order to
show, a priori, the improbability of the contradictions imputed to the
Evangelists, he makes it certain that Mark had evidently Matthew's
work before his eyes and John that of Luke. " An attentive com-
parison," says he, " of Luke vii. 12 with John iii. 6-10 does not
permit us to doubt this. John in order to make his narrative, which
is more complete, clearly harmonize with that of Luke, borrows
from him almost all the terms he had employed."
226 OUR LORD'S RESURRECTION.
returning to the city they were careful not to speak to
any one of what had happened. Did they dread the
wrath of the Sanhedrim ? At least, were they not un-
willing to pour their emotions into the breasts of any
but their brethren ? Notwithstanding the early hour,
they must have met a great many Israelites in the lead-
ing streets and squares of that immense city, where,
during festivals, there were reckoned to be no fewer
than three millions of inhabitants. The governor Florus,
in the year 65, reckoned two hundred and fifty thousand
paschal lambs, says Josephus ; and this supposes at least
two and a half millions of worshippers, without in-
cluding the sick, unclean persons, and young chil-
dren. 1
G. On arriving among the eleven and the other dis-
ciples, the women told all that they had seen. (Matt,
xxviii. 8 ; Luke xxiv. 9.) But this recital seemed to
them nothing but an idle tale. (Luke xxiv. 10.) Then
Mary of Magdala, addressing herself more particularly
to Peter and John, assured them that,, at least, if their
Master were not risen again, he must have been taken
away. (John xx. 2.)
H. According to the account itself of John, Mary
must necessarily have said to those two disciples more
than what that evangelist relates to us directly ; for he
adds, that they ran to the sepulchre ; and that no sooner
had John seen the arrangement of the linen clothes than
he believed. But, alas ! this language of Mary : " They
have taken away the Lord, and I know not where they
have laid him!" was but too natural. The fleeting
apparition of the angels had not produced so firm a
conviction in her mind as not to have been violently
shaken by the cold and incredulous reception her tale
had met from the apostles. These men, according to
whose directions she habitually conformed herself, had
' Jewish AVar, ii. 13.
OUR LORD'S RESURRECTION. 227
doubtless more than once repressed the "warmth of
her imagination. She saw them treat her heavenly
vision as a mere revery. After that, she felt only enough
of confidence in herself to attest the ordinary and ma-
terial part of the fact. At least, says she, the tomb is
open, and the body is no longer there.
I. Nevertheless, on hearing these words, and whilst
Cleopas went away to Emmaus, Peter rose, Luke tells
us (xxiv. 12), and ran to the sepulchre, but he did not
run thither alone (24) ; and John tells us that he was
accompanied by that "other disciple whom Jesus loved."
(John xx. 2, 3.) John being the younger, arrived first;
he did not go in ; but stooping down he saw the linen
clothes lying on the ground. Peter, stooping also, saw
the linen clothes lying (Luke xxiv. 12), and the napkin
that was about his head not lying with the linen clothes,
but wrapped together in a place by itself. He had the
courage to go in, and wondered at what had come to
pass (Luke xxiv. 12) ; but John did more; he entered
in his turn and believed. They then departed unto
their own home. (John xx. 10; Luke xxiv. 12.) Still
there is nothing inconsistent in all this.
K. Meanwhile, Mary of Magdala, who had followed
them, having returned to the sepulchre, remained alone
at the spot, weeping and disconsolate at not even being
able to find again her Master's remains. She stooped
down to look into the interior of the sepulchre, and
then it was that anew two angels clothed in white
presented themselves to her sight. They were seated,
the one at the head and the other at the foot of the place
where the body of Jesus had lain (John xx. 11, 13.)
Soon after, Mary having resumed her position, it was
Jesus himself whom she saw behind her. " Go," said
he to her, " to my brethren, and say unto them, I
ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my
God and your God 1" Mary hastened to go and tell
the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he
228 OUR LORD'S RESURRECTION.
r - - - - _.^_ _. _ _ ._-_ f - - -_ i
had spoken these things to her (John xx. 18) ; but they
believed not. (Mark xvi. 10.)
Thus, then, was it, as St Mark has said (xvi. 9), that
Jesus appeared first to Mary of Magdala.
The whole of this narrative is natural and harmoni-
ous ; the historians here agree together in a manner
which it is easy to comprehend. Only they relate each
some one of the great facts of that incomparable day,
without considering themselves called upon to relate the
whole.
L. The two disciples on their departure from Jeru-
salem for Emmaus (Luke xxiv. 21, 24), were as yet
unaware of the events of the day beyond the first report
of the women and of the two disciples, the opening of the
sepulchre, the removal of the Lord, the appearing of the
angels ; but they had not yet learned the last news
the appearing of Jesus to Simon Peter and Mary's se-
cond report. (John xx. 18; Mark xvi. 10.) Mark,
however, what had afterwards happened. Following
the Magdalene's example, who had returned a second
time to the sepulchre, after having informed the apostles
of her first discoveries, the other women also had be-
taken themselves thither while Mary was returning to
the disciples ; they had found the tomb ' empty ; and,
as they were returning to give a farther attestation
to their brethren that the body of Jesus could not be
found there, Jesus himself had condescended to appear to
them alive and full of sympathy. They had worshipped
him, and he had said to them : " Be not afraid : go tell
my brethren, 'that they go into Galilee, and there shall
they see me." (Matt, xxviii. 9, 10.)
Such is the harmony of the sacred narratives. This
concatenation seems to us satisfactory. ( *ne might, as
^ve have said, propose some other ; but this is enough.
We must confess that we cannot understand the diffi-
culties that have been found in it, or the noise that has
been made about it.
FURTHER EXAMPLES OF PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT. 229
ANOTHER so URGE OF PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT. Certain
reigns, such as that of Nebuchadnezzar, that of Jehoia-
chim, and that of Tiberius, had two commencements j
and the dates that relate to these are pronounced irre-
concilable .' The first, previous to mounting the throne,
reigned three years with his father ; the second reigned
ten years with his ; the third was assumed by Augustus
as his associate in the empire, from the 28th of August,
of the 2d year of the Christian era, but succeeded him
on the 1 9th of August, of the year 14. (Yelleius Pater-
culus, ii. c. 121.)
Some examples. See, for Jotham, 2 Kings xv. 33,
(he reigned sixteen years alone ; but four years also
during the lifetime of his father, who was leprous).
See for Joash, 2 Kings xiii. 1, 10, (he must have
reigned two or three years with his father, as did Jeho-
shaphat and his son, 2 Kings viii. 16.) See 2 Kings
xxiv. 8 ; and 2 Chron. xxxvi. 9. See also Daniel i. 1 ;
Jer. xxv. 1 ; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 5-7. See farther, Luke
iii. 1.
ANOTHER SOURCE OF PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT. The
design of the Holy Ghost in one of the Gospels, is not
often the same as his design in another Gospel while
relating the same fact ; yet some would have them all
give the same turn to their narratives ; nay, make bold,
because of their differences, to declare them irreconcil-
able, and to assume that they are directly opposed to
each other.
Example. The Holy Spirit, in the genealogy of
Jesus Christ, given in St Matthew (i. 16), would show
the Jeics, that, according to the strict rigour of their law,
Jesus Christ is the son and the heir of all the kings of
Judah, by a legal descent ; while the same Holy Spirit,
in the genealogy given by St Luke (iii. 23-38), would
show tlie Gentiles that Jesus Christ is the Son of David
by a natural descent. And because, with this double
230 BASH ADOPTION OF MISTRANSLATIONS.
object in view, they give us, the one his genealogy ac-
cording to the law, by Solomon, the son of David, and
by Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary ;
and the other, his genealogy according to nature, by
Nathan, another son of David, and by Heli, the father
of Mary, people have thought, very absurdly, that they
could make the one refute the other I 1
ANOTHER SOURCE OP PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT. A
text mistranslated produces a meaning that is contrary
to reason or to history ; and forthwith the sacred writer
is accused of committing the grossest blunder ! People
don't examine whether, in the simplicity of a literal
translation, the same passage, better rendered, would
not present itself free from every difficulty !
First example (again one of those adduced by M.
Twesten). St Luke, we are told (ii. 1), has no sooner
spoken of the taxing ordained by a public decree issued
by Augustus Csesar, at the time of the birth of Jesus
Christ, than he adds these words at verse 2 : " This
taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of
Syria."
Hence it would follow that St Luke is here caught in
flagrant contradiction with contemporary history ; for,
at the birth of Jesus Christ, Judea was governed by
Herod, and Syria either by Saturninus, or rather (from
the seventh year of the Christian era) by Quintilius
Yarus, who replaced him, and during whose adminis-
tration the death of Herod the Great took place The
Cyrenius (Publius Sulpicius Quirinius), under whom a
second census took place, was not sent to the East until
eleven or twelve years, at the least, after the birth of
Jesus Christ. The historian Josephus 2 tells us in ex-
1 This difficulty is hardly any longer insisted on. We can do no
more here than point to the solution of it. Its exposition requires a
development which would be inadmissible in these pages. It may
oe easily found elsewhere.
* Ant. Jud., xvii. 15, xyiii. 3.
CYBENIUS, GOVERNOR OF SYRIA. 231
press terms, that this census took place the thirty-seventh
year after the defeat of Anthony ; and Jesus Christ was
born, at the latest, the twenty-sixth year after that great
event. Luke, then, must have made a mistake of ele-
ven years, and must have confounded these two epochs
and these two censuses.
Before replying to this strange accusation, we would
have the reader observe its extreme improbability, even
taking St Luke to have been a mere uninspired man.
What ! Luke, the only one of the evangelists that was
a person of erudition Luke, the physician Luke, who
subsequently resumes the mention of the census of Qui-
rinius, when he recalls that famous revolt of Judas the
Galilean, which stirred up all Judea and caused the de-
struction of a great many people, who perished along
with him l Luke, writing for all nations, and in four
and twenty pages, an historical work, which he knew
would be immortal Luke could make such a mistake
as to place in the days of Herod the Great so very seri-
ous an event which had happened within the preceding
thirty years ! "What should we say at the present day
of a physician, who, even in a simple conversation,
should put the battle of Austerlitz in the days of Ca-
therine II. and of the National Convention ? 'And if
this doctor were to publish a short narrative, in which
such an absurdity should be found, what reception,
think you, would he find even among his most unlet-
tered contemporaries ?
It is thus, then, that often, when people would make
the sacred writers contradict themselves, they scruple
not to impute to them such silliness as would be almost
miraculous.
But let us return to the passage. There is nothing
simpler than its translation : it is a parenthesis. Ac-
cording to the accent placed on the first word (aur*i), it
becomes either a demonstrative pronoun, or a pronomi-
Acts v. 37.
232 OUR LORD S TEMPTATIONS.
nal adjective ; and, in this alternative, the phrase ought
to be translated literally^ in the former case, by " This
first census" and, in the latter case, by " The first census
itself." It is in this latter sense that the word has been
rendered by the authors of the new version, published
some months ago by a society of ministers in Switzer-
land, 1 and it is that also which we think ought to be
adopted.
Thus, then, there is nought but what is quite natural
and quite correct in St Luke's narrative. After having
spoken in the first verse of a decree from Augustus,
which began to be executed under Herod's reign, he in-
timates (in the parenthesis of verse 2) that one must not
confound what was done then with the too famous cen-
sus of which all Judea still retained so tragical a recol-
lection. The first census itself, says he, was effected
while Cyrenius was Governor of Syria. Such is the
plain literal translation of the Greek. 2
Second example. St Matthew (iv. 5), immediately
after the first temptation, says, that " THEN the devil led
Jesus into the holy city." And when this second
temptation was over, he adds (v. 8), in beginning to
relate the third, that " AGAIN the devil taJceth him up into
an exceeding high mountain" &c.
St Luke, on the contrary (iv. 5), immediately after
the first tempation, says, that " THEN took him up into an
high mountain;" and when this second temptation was
ended, he adds, in beginning to tell of the third, " He
brought him also to Jerusalem." ....
Here, then, we find two of the evangelists manifestly
at variance as to the order in which the three tempta-
tions took place. One of the two must of necessity
1 Lausanne, J839, p. 105.
* Others, taking a$m in the sense of {'{ as in the f^Sras (too H>
of John the Baptist (John i. 15, 30), translate, " This census took
place before Cyrenius was governor of Syria." This translation
would still be legitimate, though perhaps less natural, because the
Greek, with this meaning, would less resemble St Luke's ordinary
stvle.
MISTRANSLATION CORRECTED. 233
have been mistaken in putting the last hefore the second.
Such is the objection.
You will see this difficulty equally vanish as soon as,
instead of following Osterwald's version or Martin's,
you seek only to give a more faithful rendering to the
original text. We might here adduce a good many
other passages (chiefly in the Epistles) which these two
translators have darkened, by not sufficiently marking
the import of the conjunctions and adverbs xai, 8s, yag,
GUI', TOTS, &C.
Every one knows 1 that St Luke, in writing his Gos-
pel, did not restrain himself to the order of time, and
that he had proposed to himself in his narratives to
group together events and lessons rather according to
the order of things (jca0g3jjs). Both these methods of
writing biography have their advantages. Among
heathen writers, for example, Nepos has followed the
first, and Suetonius the second. It was necessary,
therefore, that the translators of St Luke, marking well
his language, should not make him appear to use ad-
verbs of time, order, or events, which he had no
thought of employing, and which come in much out of
place to alter the meaning of what he has to say. Re-
establish here the conjunctions of the Greek, and you
will see forthwith the contradiction which the two
French texts had presented to you disappear.
St Matthew, who always follows the chronological
order of the facts, takes care to employ very exact ad-
verbs in proportion as he advances in his account of the
temptation ; TOTS. TOTS, TraX/v, TOTS, TOTS, then, then, anew,
then, then. But Luke, on the contrary, who had not
proposed to himself to follow the same course, and who
confines his intention simply to letting us know the
three attacks to which the Son of God behoved to sub-
ject his holy humanity, studiously abstains from using
any adverb of order or of time, and contents himself
1 See Home's Introd., vol. ii. p. 3, book 2d, 4.
234 SOME ACTS AND SAYINGS REPEATED.
with coupling, ten several times, the facts of his narra-
tive by the copulative AND (%/), which our translations
have so improperly rendered by the adverb ALORS, or
ENSUITE (English, THEN, or AFTERWARDS.)
The contradiction then does not belong to the sacred
text. 1
ANOTHER SOURCE OF PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT. It
has not been sufficiently borne in mind, that certain dis-
courses and certain acts were repeated more than once
in the course of our Saviour's ministry. Hence the
utmost rashness in concluding that certain detailed
accounts given by two evangelists contradict each other,
where there has been no more than an incomplete re-
semblance, and yet where people have imagined that
the facts they read of were identically the same.
Examples. In the double miracle of the multiplica-
tion of the loaves, we have a very striking instance of
the ease with which one may in this way be led into
error. On two occasions Jesus Christ, moved with
compassion for the people, fed a famished multitude in
the wilderness. Between these two miracles there are
numerous and striking points of resemblance. Had it
so happened that two of the evangelists had related only
the first, and two others only the second, there would
have been sure to be a cry that the two were but one,
and that there was a contradiction in the statement of
their details. What ! in the one, five thousand men fed
with five loaves ; in the other, four thousand men fed
with seven loaves ! In the one twelve baskets
taken away; in the other, seven hampers
"What a disagreement ! Well it is that if Luke and John
have mentioned the first only, Matthew and Mark, who
relate the second, have also reported the first. But for
this what a noise would not our adversaries have raised
in the schools about such a passage !
1 In the first edition of this work, we corrected here the faulty
interpretation given of Job xxxvii. 8. We have suppressed it only
to make room for other objection?
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 235
This remark may be applied to several particulars of
the New Testament ; for example, to the Lord's prayer,
which was given twice, at least, to the disciples during
our Lord's ministry. (Matt. vi. 9 ; Luke xi. 2).
See also Matt. xii. 39, and xvi. 1, 4 ; Luke viii. 21,
xi. 27, and Matt. xii. 49; Luke ix. 1, x. 1, and Matt.
x. 1.
"We shall adduce one further example.
It does not appear, on close examination, that the
sermon called that of the mount (Matt. v. vi. vii.), and
that given by St Luke in the latter half of his sixth
chapter, were delivered on the same occasion. 1 In fact,
first, St Luke omits many of the sentences reported by
St Matthew, 2 and he alone adds some others (vi. 24-26);
secondly, Matthew lets us know, that the sermon which
he reports preceded the healing of the leprous person
(viii. 3), and Luke that his followed it (Luke v. 12);
thirdly, Luke -puts Matthew in the number of those
whom Jesus called to the apostleship, and who came
down with him from the mountain, before he addressed
to them his discourse ; whereas Matthew himself tells
us, that the sermon of which he speaks, long preceded
his vocation ; fourthly, one of those discourses was de-
livered on the mountain, while Jesus, who had sat
down, had his disciples ranged around him ; the other, .
on the contrary, was delivered on the plain, and with
other circumstances attending it. We pause at this
remark, in order to reassure such persons as may
have heard adduced against the doctrine of inspira-
tion, the alleged contradiction of the sentence in which
Matthew (v. 40) makes Jesus say, " If any man will
take away thy coat (j^iruva), let him have thy cloak
(fyiar/ov) also ;" and of that in which, according to
Luke, he had said, " Him that taketh away thy cloak,
forbid not to take thy coat also." 8 One can no more,
then, we say, make an objection of this diversity, see-
1 See Whitby on Matt. v. 5.
* For example, Matt. T. 13, 39. The whole 6tb and 7th chap.,
6-16. a Luke vi. 29.
236 VARIOUS HEADINGS RASHLY REJECTED.
ing these two sentences were pronounced on different
days.
Nevertheless, we must not forget, at the same time,
to observe, inasmuch as this remark applies to several
other objections of the same nature. Even were it true
that these two passages were cited as the same frag-
ment of one and the same discourse, still their differing
would not have anywise astonished us. We believe
that the Holy Ghost, when he quotes the Holy Ghost,
is not bound to use the same terms, provided the same
meanings be retained. A man of an exact mind, in
repeating what he has said before, or in quoting him-
self, by no means thinks himself bound to carry imita-
tion thus far. And we think, that here our Lord's
whole idea is found equally in the sentences of Luke
and Matthew.
ANOTHER SOURCE OP PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT One
may sometimes pay no attention to a various reading
critically respectable, and which resolves a difficulty;
and prefer imputing some contradiction to the sacred
writer.
Example. According to the three first evangelists
(Mark xv. 25, 33, 34; Matt, xxvii. 45, 46; Luke xxiii.
44, 45), our Saviour was put upon the cross at the
third hour of the day (that is to say, at nine o'clock
in the morning); the sun was darkened at the sixth
hour, and Jesus gave up the ghost at the ninth hour;
whereas, if we are to believe St John (xix. 14), -the
execution did not begin until the sixth hour of the day
(at noon). Palpable contradiction! say some objec-
tors.
Before replying to this difficulty, we shall offer a
remark, much like that already made on the census of
Cyrenius. Was it likely that the apostle John was
ignorant of the length of time that his Master's execu-
tion lasted, and could he possibly have made a mistake
MEANINGS RASHLY MISAPPREHENDED. 237
of three hours out of six he who had remained beside
the cross !
But, if we consult the Greek manuscripts of St John,
we shall find four in small letters, and three in uncial
letters (among others, Beza's famous roll, preserved at
Cambridge), which have here the third hour instead of
the sixth. Numbers, in the Greek manuscripts, are
often expressed in numerals ; that is to say, in simple
Greek letters; and 3 and 6 are expressed by two letters
that are very easily confounded (the ya/i/ia and the
Jflr/tfjj/etoi/) : several of the ancients thought^ that the va-
riation might have arisen from this cause. Griesbach,
who has marked this variation with a sign of preference,
quotes Severus of Antioch and Ammonius in Theo-
phylact ; and he adds, that the Chronicle of Alexan-
dria appealed, in favour of this reading, to the best
copies, and even to the original autograph (/8/o^s/gw)
of the Gospel of St John.
ANOTHER SOURCE OF PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT. Peo-
ple fail to seize the meaning of certain particulars
in a narrative, and hasten to conclude that the author
was mistaken !
First example. Jesus, in St Matthew (xxiii. 35, 36),
denounced the most terrible judgments of God on the
Jews, on account of the treatment they had given his
saints, " in order," says he, " that upon this race (or this
generation, yiviav) may come all the righteoiis blood
shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel
unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom
ye slew between the temple and the altar ! "
Here, certainly, we are told, there is an awkward in-
advertence, not on the part of Jesus Christ, no doubt,
but of the evangelist who reports these words, and whose
memory must have failed him. We know, from the
Second Book of Chronicles (xxiv. 21), that this Zacha-
rias, who was stoned to death by the Jews in the holy
place (ga~), was the son, not of Barachias, but of Je-
238 ZACHARLAS, SON OF BARACHIAS. '
hoiada. Here, then, there is an evident error. It
does not affect doctrine, and cannot in the slightest de-
gree disquiet our faith ; but it suffices to attest, that the
divine inspiration has not descended, as has been main-
tained, to the choice of expressions, or to matters of
indifference, in the inspired narratives.
The answer is simple ; would we could make it as
short as it is conclusive. We shall first briefly state
what it is. The Zacharias here is not the Zacharias
you speak of : the Evangelist, therefore, has made no
mistake in not naming him, for he was not thinking of
him. Is there not, in fact, a manifest incompatibility
in such a supposition with the idea that occupied our
Lord's mind ? Was it not his purpose to recall the long
succession of homicides for which the Jewish race will
have to render an account ? And when he takes his
first instance of murder from times preceding the flood,
at the gate of paradise, to make them accountable for it,
you would have him think it enough to adduce as the
last, a crime committed above eight centuries before !
After commencing with a son of Adam, can you
imagine that he could end vdth the son of Jehoiada ;
thus holding the Jews innocent of the blood shed, dur-
ing the 873 most scandalous years of their history ?
Would it not have been more rational to begin rather
than to end with Jehoiada ? Were not the Jews far
more responsible for the murders they had committed
during the last preceding nine centuries of their history,
than they could be for blood shed before the deluge ?
Had they not persecuted, for example, and slain with
frightful atrocity the prophet Urijah, 240 years after
Jehoiada? (Jer. xxvi. 23.) "Which of the pro-
phets," said St Stephen to them, " have not your fathers
persecuted ? They have even slain them which showed
before of the coming of the Just One !" (Acts vii. 52.)
In this passage of St Matthew, then, it is not the son
of Jehoiada that is spoken of.
Here our reply might close ; but we shall no doubt,
be asked, Who then was the Zechariah spoken of by
DIFFERENT ZACHARIAHS. 239
Jesus Christ ? Even although we did not know, this
would by no means be a difficulty, and we should content
ourselves with replying : It was some just person whom
the Jews slew, not only in the court of the temple (Iv rw
/sow) like the son of Jehoiada, but between the temple (rou
vaou) and the altar ;" and this just person was son of
Barachias ! Nevertheless, one may go further still ;
for history speaks of two or three other Zachariahs, sons
of Barachias (Baga^;/ou or Bagou^ou), among whom the
learned divide their suffrages.
The first was a man who had understanding in the
visions of God (as he is called in the second book of
Chronicles), 1 and who is believed to be the same as he
that is spoken of by Isaiah, in his 8th chapter. 2 Be
that as it may, he lived too short a time after the son of
Jehoiada, for our objections against the one not to be
equally valid against the other.
The second is the prophet " Zachariah, the son of
Berechiah, and the grandson of Iddo" (Zech. i. 1), who
returned from Babylon with Zorobabel, 325 years after
the days of Jehoiada, and whose writings form the se-
cond last book of the Old Testament.
The Scripture, it is true, has not related his martyr-
dom to us, any more than that of the other prophets,
who were almost all persecuted and put to death. But
the temple and the altar were rebuilt by his care, as well
that of Haggai (Esdras iv. 14, 15) ; and Zechariah, as
it would appear, was slain " between that temple and that
altar." We read in the Targum, or the Chaldee para-
phrase of Jonathan Ben- Uziel (said to have been a con- '
temporary of Jesus Christ), 8 the following passage, Avhich
attest to us what was even then, previous to the days of
our Saviour, the tradition of the Jews with regard to
this prophet, calleil indifferently the son of Hiddo and
the son of Barachias (Zech. i. 1 ; Ezra v. 1 ; vi. 1 4) :
The paraphrast (Lam. ii. 20) introduces the " House of
1 xxvi. >.
8 Hieron, in Isaiam, viii. 2 (in the LXX. Z<e^{iir &
8 Prolegom. de Walton, 12.
22
240 ZACHARIAS MENTIONED BY JOSEPHUS.
Judgment" replying to this complaint of Jeremiah :
" Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanc-
tuary of the Lord?" " Was it well in you .... to
slay a prophet as you did Zechariah, the son of Hiddo,
in the house of the Lord's sanctuary, because he endea-
voured to withdraw you from your evil ways ?" 1 Thus
it will be seen that Jesus Christ might remind the Jews
of the sacrilegious murder of that prophet, son of Bara-
chias, and son of Hiddo, with whom the prophecy of
the Old Testament was to close.
However, there is still a third Zacharias, son of Ba-
rachias, (or of Baruch, Bag ou%ou), to whom our Lord's
saying might be applied with still more likelihood.
Flavius Josephus has made him known to us in that
inestimable " History of the Jewish War," which con-
firms so many other prophecies of the New Testament.
It was only three years before the final destruction of
Jerusalem, that people saw a Zacharias, son of Barach
slain by the Jewish zealots in the middle of the holy
place (!* /^iffw rw /?&), 2 and his body was thrown over
the walls of the mount on which the temple stood. He
was a just man, according to Josephus ; he was hated
for his virtues, for his influence, for his hatred of evil,
and for his zeal for liberty. 8 At the close of that fright-
ful night, which was, says Josephus, " the real com-
mencement of the destruction of Jerusalem," (and in
which the zealots butchered the chief of the nation, the
high priest Ananus, and, soon after, twelve thousand
youths of the Israelitish nobility), these infuriated men,
* affecting the forms of justice, had him dragged before a
court of seventy judges, all of whom, however, had the
courage to declare him innocent. Then, maddened with
rage at hearing his reproaches, and at the noble spirit in
which he addressed them, they rushed upon him and
massacred him in the middle of the holy place" Here,
as many commentators think, we behold the last af the
1 Wbitby's Commentary on Mafct. xxiii. 35.
2 Bell. Judaic., lib. iv. c. 19.
TO K'IKI T&ntifis pufosttr^ov xau
THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 241
just persons whose blood has to be required of that
homicidal race. Abel is the first, Zacharias the last.
Thus it is, that Jesus Christ, assuming the style of the
prophets in using the past for the future, speaks of
this crime as already committed : " Whom ye sleic" he
says to them, " between the temple and the altar !"
The historian Josephus, it is true, speaks of Zacharias
only as a righteous man, and not as a Christian or as a
prophet. But, being a Jew, he could not hold any other
language. And we see at another place ( Antiq., lib. xx.
c. 8), that as little does he speak of the apostle James
(who, nevertheless, was also a prophet) as more than a
good man, whom the high priest Ananus caused to be
stoned, 1 to the great regret of the more respectable
classes, during the interregnum that followed the un-
expected death of the governor Festus. No more
does it appear to us that the difference in the termina-
tions of the names Barachias and Baruck, is enough to
destroy the argument arising from their etymological
and radical resemblance. We see, in fact, in the New
Testament, how much people were accustomed, among
the Jews, Hebrew or Hellenist, to change the termina-
tion of their proper names. (Silas and Silvanus, 2 Prisca
and Priscilla, 8 Babba and Rabbath, Lucas and Lu-
cius*).
Be this as it may, we conclude once more, that this
passage could not refer to the son of Jehoiadah ; and
we leave to the reader to decide which of the two
personages whom we have pointed out was the one
contemplated by Jesus Christ.
Second example. Mark xi. 12-14. Jesus cursed a
fig-tree which had only leaves; for the time for Jigs was
not yet come.
Here, we are told, there is no doubt a mistake : why
2 2 Cor. i. 19; Thess. i. 1 ; Acts xv. 22,34, xvi. 26. ivii. 15.
a 2 Tim. iv. 19; Rom. xvi. 3; Acts xviii. 2, 26.
< Acts xiii. 1 ; Rom. xvi. 21 ; Philem. 24.
242 CHRONOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS.
look for fruit at a time when it could not reasonably be
expected ?
Yet there is nothing here hut what is very simple.
Had it been the season for gathering figs, the tree might
have been stripped of all its fruit by the hand of man ;
and, in that case, there was no evidence of its barren-
ness.
But is a tree (we mention the objection in passing)
guilty because it bears no fruit ? Why punish it ? We
reply, that in this miracle, which is a type, the tree is
as little a sufferer as it is a criminal, nor is its suffering
more real than its morality. The one is symbolical,
and so also is the other.
ANOTHER SOURCE OF PRECIPITATE JUDGMENT. In
questions of chronology, regard has not been paid to
the following rule (which we take pleasure in express-
ing here in the very words of the great reformer of
Italy, the excellent Peter Martyr). 1
[The great divisions of time in the history of the
people of God are pointed out to us by numerical dates
of great precision. From the passing of Abraham into
Canaan to the entrance of his grandson into Egypt,
215 years; from that to the passage of the Red Sea,
v 215 years more hence in all 430 years (Gal. iii. 17;
Exod. xii. 40); from that, further, to the foundation
of the temple, 480 years (1 Kings vi. 1); and from that,
in fine, to the Babylonish captivity, 422 years more.
But within these grand divisions of history, the precise
and co-ordinate arrangement of all the short interme-
diate dates, the reconciling of the numbers presented to
us by books of an almost monumental conciseness, and
of an age contemporary with the siege of Troy (that of
Judges, Kings, and Chronicles), respecting the reigns
and interregnums, first of the Judges, then of the Kings,
especially after the subdivision of the twelve tribes into
two distinct kingdoms ; this arrangement, we say, pre-
: In his Commentary on 2 Kings viii. 17, and I Kings xv. 1.
RULE LAID DOWN BY PETER MARTYR. 243
sents numerous difficulties, for which we find the ele-
ments of an entire solution sometimes wanting.]
The following is the rule of Peter Martyr :
" Although obscure passages occur as to chronology,
we must beware of pretending to reconcile them by im-
puting blunders to the inspired books. Therefore it is,
that, should it sometimes happen that we know not
how to account for the number of years, we ought
simply to confess our ignorance, and consider that the
Scriptures express themselves with so much conciseness
that it is not always possible for us to discover at what
epoch we ought to make such or such a computation
commence. It often enough happens, that, in the his-
tory of the kings of Judah and of Israel, the respective
numbers of their years are not easily reconciled ; but
these difficulties admit of explanation or adjustment in
several ways. 1. The same year commenced by one of
two, and finished by the other, is attributed to both.
2. Often the sons have reigned with their fathers during
some years, which have been imputed sometimes to the
fathers, sometimes to the sons. 3. There were often
interregnums, which the Scripture attributes sometimes
to the predecessor, sometimes to the successor. Finally,
it sometimes happens that certain years, in which op-
pressive and profane princes have reigned, are not
reckoned to them, being imputed to their immediate
successor ; thus, the twenty last years of Joram to his
son Ahaziah. (2 Kings viii. 26 ; 2 Chron. xxii. 2.)"
We think that the examples we have thus far ad-
duced, may suffice. We refrain from adducing more.
What we have said may give one an idea of the weight
to be attached to these difficulties, 1 for (we repeat) we
have been careful to adduce those which have been
held as the most serious. Warned by these examples,
and by so many others, let us learn then, should any
] See, for further details, the authors whom we have .quoted, and
in particular the useful compilation of Home. (Introduction to the
Critical Study of the Bible).
244 NATURAL PHILOSOPHY OBJECTIONS.
embarrassment of the same kind occur to us ia fu-
ture, how to judge as did Origen's friend, Julius Afri-
canus, sixteen hundred years ago, and as, before
and after him, all the men of God have done. " Be
that as it may (said he on the occasion of the two
genealogies of Jesus Christ, which he had reconciled)
be that as it may, the gospel certainly every where
speaks true !" T^ /ASVTOI TZvayyeXiov <ffdvrag
SECTION VI.
ERRORS CONTRARY TO NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.
It will be admitted, we have been sometimes told,
that the apparent or real contradictions in the dates,
quotations, and narratives of the Holy Bible, may pos-
sibly be removed by the resources of a more or less
laborious exegesis; but there are others which you can-
not reconcile : such are all those expressions in which
the sacred writers appear in manifest opposition to the
now better known laws of nature. Nevertheless (these
objectors desire to add), though this argument be irre-
fragable against the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures,
it compromises in nothing the divinity of their doc-
trines, any more than the great religious facts which
they report to us. In inspiring his apostles and his
prophets, God desired to make us, not scientific, but
holy persons. Thus he could, without danger, allow
the writers he employed to speak in ignorance of the
phenomena of the material world ; and their prejudices
on such matters are innocent though incontestable.
Do you not often find them expressing themselves as if"
the earth were immovable and the sun in motion ?
That star, according to them, rises and falls : " his going
forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto
the ends of it" (Ps. xix); the moon and the stars are
1 Euseb. Hist. Eccles., lib. i. c. 7.
THE SUN THAT STOOD STILL ON GIBBON. 245
equally in movement ; the sun, at the command of
Joshua became immovable in the midst of the heavens,
it " stood still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley
of Ajalon" (Josh. x. 12) ; the earth is " founded on the
seas" (Ps. xxiv. 2); "drawn from the water, it sub-
sists amid the water" (2 Peter iii. 5); " God hath laid
its foundations, it shall never be moved" (Ps. civ. 5)
Can you admit that this is really the language of the
Creator of the heavens and of the earth, when address-
ing his creatures ?
We proceed to reply to this objection, and we are de-
lighted to meet it on our path, seeing that the examination
of it can only redound to the glory of the Scriptures.
We most fully admit that were there some physical
errors, duly ascertained, in the book of the Scriptures,
it would not be entirely from God ; but we proceed to
put it beyond a doubt that there are no such errors ;
and we will venture to defy our adversaries to produce
a single such error in the whole of .the Bible. Nay,
we will even go much farther ; and will show how much
latent science, on the contrary, betrays itself there, be-
neath the simplicity of its language.
We shall begin by saying a few words on Joshua's
miracle, inasmuch as a disposition has often been shown
to turn it to account in combating either the plenary
inspiration, or even the divine mission of the men of
God. Several unbelieving writers have attacked it with
that arrogance and irony which too often characterize
them. But it is easy to reply to them. We have no
thoughts of discussing here the methods by which the
miracle might have been accomplished ; we would only
remark, from this example, how lightly people hasten
to pronounce, that because certain passages of Scripture
are not understood, therefore they must needs be irra-
tional.
The sun, on the day of the battle of Beth-horon,
stood still in the midst of heaven, we are told in the
10th chaper of Joshua; and there was no day like that
oefore it or after it.
246 STOPPAGE BY CONTINUOUS ACTION.
It has been said in Germany " This phrase, taken in
its natural sense, seems to us absurd ; it is erroneous,
therefore, and altogether human." Elsewhere it has
been pronounced so absurd, that another meaning
must be given to it. But both opinions are drawn from
false premises. The fact is far from being absurd ; it
is only miraculous.
We shall give the objection in the very words in
which it has been stated : " The most fearless metho-
dist," it has been said, " will feel constrained to own
that in the system of our globe, were the sun to stop
for an instant, or were the earth's motion to be slackened,
belligerent armies, and all that is on the earth's surface,
would be swept away like chaff before the wind !"
'Nevertheless, it is this very objection which is an
error. In point of fact, if the miracle, instead of stop-
ping the rotation of the globe suddenly, in an indivisi-
ble instant, took only the short space of a few seconds
to accomplish it,, by a supple and continuous action,
then you have enough in this feeble circumstance to be
assured that such a phenomenon would have had no
very sensible effect mechanically beyond that of raising
the waters diffused over the surface of the earth, and
making them to flow from west to east. A child might
tell it you. Let a carriage in rapid motion meet a curb-
stone it shatters itself upon it, because the stone is im-
movable ; arid all that are in the carriage are projected
to a distance, and thrown with violence on the ground.
But let it be stopt by a continuous resistance, operating
in a successive manner, and consummating itself in
three or four seconds : then the smallest children seated
in the carriage will remain in their seats ; they will not
even feel the impulsion which three seconds before was
impressed on them by the impetuous movement of the
horses, and which, without this precaution, would have
sufficed to launch them to a distance.
The rotation of the earth is, at the equator, 1426 feet
the second; at Jerusalem, 1212 feet. This is the ini-
tial speed of a canon ball projected by a charge the fifth
PROJECTILE IMPULSION ILLUSTRATED. 247
part of its own weight. It is capable (abstraction being
made of the resistance of the air) of raising that pro-
jectile to the extreme height of 24,000 feet ; and yet a
child, six years old, -would destroy, without danger, in
two-thirds of a minute, the whole of this force by the
continued action of his fingers. Put into his little
hands a canon ball of eight pounds weight, and let him
hold it against the action of its weight during two-thirds
of a minute ; during the same time, allow another bul-
let of quite the same weight to drop freely through the
air, and from the height of the summit of the Himalaya
range. When forty seconds only have expired, the
force of gravitation, after having acted by the same im-
pulsions upon both these projectiles, will not have done
more with respect to the first than have fatigued the feeble
hands that resist it, while it would have made the
other acquire a speed equal to that which the rotation
of the earth impressed on the belligerent armies on the
hill of Beth-horon. Since, then, a child might destroy,
by the continuous effort of his little hands, a force ca-
pable (if concentrated on a single instant) of launching
a canon bullet to .the height of Chimborazo, we can
easily conceive that, if God, on the day of the battle of
Beth-horon, had employed two-thirds of a minute to
arrest, by short and successive resistances, the rotation
of our globe, then the projectile impulsions which a
mass of eight pounds of iron would have received con-
tinually during these forty seconds, would not even have
been so strong as that a child might not have destroyed
them by the sole effort of his fingers, and without ex-
pending more force than he would have to put forth in
sustaining with his hands a weight of eight pounds
during the same space of time. And if the mass, in-
stead of having the form of a bullet, had had that of a
quoit or a cube, it would not have had enough of that
impulsion to make it overcome the resistance of friction,
and to change its place on the surface of the ground.
It will be objected, perhaps, that the rotation of the
earth at Beth-horon, was twenty-seven times more rapid
23
248 ANOTHER OBJECTION EQUALLY FUTILE.
than that of a steam-carriage on a railway. This ia
true; but since the retarding force necessary for ex-
hausting a given impulsion is in the inverse ratio of
the time employed in it, grant that the miracle took
eighteen minutes for its consummation ; take eighteen
minutes (instead of forty seconds) for the entire stop-
page of the movement of the terrestrial globe at the
voice of Joshua ; and then the belligerent armies, in-
stead of being " swept away as if by a tempest," would
not have felt more from what happened, than do the
thousands of travellers that are stopt at each of the
stations on a railway.
Other difficulties of a like kind have been started
with regard to this miracle of Joshua. Had the earth,
it has been said, suspended its motion during ten hours,
the attractive force of the sun acting singly upon it, would
in that time have made it fall 900 leagues in the direc-
tion of the sun's blazing focus, and the annual conditions
of our orbit would have been sensibly troubled.
This objection is no less futile than the preceding.
The miracle, in fact, does not imply the slightest per-
turbation in the progressive movemejit of the earth ; it
requires it only in its rotation. Now, according to the
laws of the celestial mechanism, the rotation of a star
upon its axis is entirely independent of the movement
impressed on its centre of gravity, and which makes it
move onwards in its elliptical course. Experience had at-
tested this before it was demonstrated by calculation.
It had long been observed that the speed of the sun (or
rather of the earth) in its orbit, ceases not to vary from
one end of the year to the other ; and yet there does
not exist in nature a more uniform movement than that
which makes the whole celestial sphere daily revolve to
our eyes. We are even assured, from the observations
of the movement of the moon, that for more than 2000
years the sidereal day has not varied so much as the
hundredth part ot a second.
Let there be supposed, then, a double shock impressed
upon the earth above and below its centre, and in two
FUTILITY OF THE OBJECTIONS. 249
contrary and parallel directions, and we shall have ex-
plained how its rotation on its axis might have been
suspended without any change in its onward movement.
But here I check myself. It would be rash, do I say ?
it would be childish to pretend to enter into the details
of the prodigy with the view of ascertaining its causes ;
and my only wish has been to show the futility of the
objections. The true one, which people do not state,
is that they find the miracle too great for its object.
But, for men who believe in the great miracle of re-
demption by the Son of God, nothing is too great, and all
things advance in due proportions, in the divine revela-
tions. Moreover, and I hasten to say it, it would not
even be necessary, in order to account for this prodigy,
to suppose so sovereign an act of Omnipotence as the
suspension of the rotation of our globe. God might
have employed for this purpose only one of those nu-
merous means which divert the light from its paths,
and produce the innumerable illusions of optics ; some
one of those refractions, for example, which daily dis-
place to our eyes, in different measures, all the stars of
the celestial sphere. Is it not matter of notoriety, that
in the polar regions the power of the horizontal refrac-
tions makes the sun appear to the inhabitants of those
cold countries ten days before he really rises above the
horizon ? Such might have been the cause of the mi-
racle of Beth-horon. We decide nothing ; we do not
even venture on a hypothesis. We would only say,
that the miracle was duly consummated (whatever the
means by which it was produced), provided that the
sun, to the eyes of the inhabitants of Palestine, stood
still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley ofAjalon. 1
Meanwhile, the Scriptures are reproached with hold-
ing a language on the daily phenomena of nature, ap-
parently betokening ignorance, and incompatible with
a plenary inspiration. According to the writers of the
Bible, the sun rises, the sun sets, the sun stands still,
1 One may read, besides, on this miracle, some striking historical
and geological considerations in Chaubard's Elements de Geulogie.
250 POPULAR, LANGUAGE OF SCRIPTURE
the earth remains unmoved. People will have it that the
Creator, in speaking to us in a book inspired by him,
would have more clearly shown us that the Spirit, that
made the sacred historians speak, knew before we did
the rotation of our globe, its periodical revolution, and
the respective immobility of the sun.
Let us, then, examine this reproach.
We ask, first of all, of the persons who give utterance
to it, if they would have had the Bible to speak like
Sir Isaac Newton. Would they dismiss from their
minds the consideration that if God, in speaking of the
decrees of nature, were to express himself, I do not say
only as he sees them, but as the scientific men of future
ages will be able to see them, then even the great New-
ton could have understood nothing of what was said ?
Moreover, even the most advanced language of science
is not yet, and never will be, after all, more than the
language of appearances. The visible world, much
more than you suppose, is a passing shadow, a scene of
illusions and of phantoms. What you call a reality* is
still in itself but a phenomenon considered in its rela-
tion to a more exalted reality, and to an ulterior ana-
lysis. In our mortal lips the word reality has no-
thing absolute ; it is a term altogether relative, merely
intimating that people think they have added one new
step to the deep ladder of our ignorances. The human
eye sees objects under only two dimensions, and pro-
jects them all as if on the same canvass, until touch and
repeated experience have assured us of the reality of a
depth, or of a third dimension. Colours are accidents,
and it is only by reflection or illusion that they belong
to the object which presents them to you. Even the
impenetrability of bodies, their solidity, their extension,
are no more than an appearance, and present themselves
as a reality only until the farther progress of one science
shall substitute another for it. Who would venture to
say where this analysis ought to stop, and in what
terms should we speak of creatures with which we are
most familiar, were we but endowed with one more sense.
THE ONLY INTELLIGIBLE LANGUAGE. 251
with antennae, for example, like ants and bees ? The
expression of appearances, accordingly, provided it be
exact, is, among men, philosophically correct, and what
it behoved the Scriptures to employ. Would men have
the Bible speak to us of the scenes of nature otherwise
than we speak of them to one another, in our social or
domestic intercourse, otherwise even than they are
spoken of among the most enlightened persons ? When
Sir John Herschel tells his domestics to waken him
precisely at midnight, to observe the passage of some
star over his meridian telescope, does he feel himself
called upon to speak to them about the rotation of the
earth, and of the moment when it will have brought
their nadir into the plane of its orbit ? I should think
not ; and were you even to hear him converse in Green-
wich Observatory with the scientific Airey, you would
find, that even in that sanctuary of science, the habitual
language of these astronomers is still quite like that of
the Scriptures. For them the stars rise, the equinoxes
recede, the planets go forward and accelerate their
speed, stop and go back. Would you, then, that Moses
should speak to all the generations of men in a more
scientific language than La Place or Arago ?
But more than this. Here we would bid the reader
notice two general facts, that throw out a deal of light
the moment we study them, and which soon betray in
the Scriptures the pen of Almighty God. Here, as every
where else, the objections, when narrowly examined,
come back upon you, loudly retract themselves, and
become arguments on the other side.
These two facts are analogous to what you might
observe in the words of a scientific astronomer convers-
ing with his sons in their boyhood, and pointing out
the earth and the heavens to them with his finger. If
you follow him into these conversations, where his af-
fection, stooping to their level, presents to their growing
intelligence such images and words as it can compre-
hend, you will soon notice his respect for truth shown
under a double character. First, he will never say any
252 ILLUSTRATION PROM DOMESTIC LIFE.
thing to them that is not true; and, secondly, there
will be many intimations in his words that he knows
more on the subject than he wishes to tell them. He
will make no pretension, it is true, to teach them science ;
but, on the one hand, nothing in all he says will con-
tradict its principles ; and, on the other hand, several
of his words will at once reveal that while he restrains
himself from speaking about it, still he knows it. After-
wards, when his children, grown up to manhood, come
to recall his words, not only will they find them exempt
from all error, but they will farther recognize in them
such a skilful choice of expression as to put them at
one in a pre- established harmony with science, and to
present it to them, while not aware of it, in its germ.
In proportion to the gradual advance of their own know-
ledge, they will see with admiration, under the reserve
and simplicity of his language, concealed marks of
wisdom, instances of a scientific precision, a general
phraseology and particular expressions harmonizing
with events then unknown to them, but that had long
been known to him.
Well, then, such also is the double observation which
every attentive reader may make on the phraseology of
the Scriptures. They speak poetically, but with preci-
sion, the true language of appearances. In them we
hear a father condescending to address his youngest
sons, yet in such a manner that the oldest can never
find there a single sentence contrary to the true condi-
tion of the things he has created ; and in such a manner
also he suffers to escape from him, without affectation,
enough to demonstrate to them that all that they have
learned of his works during the last four thousand years,
he knew before them and better than they. It is thus
that, in the Bible, Eternal Wisdom addresses his children.
In proportion as they advance in growth, they see that
the Scripture is made for their age, is adapted to their
development, appearing to grow with their growth, and
always presenting the two facts which we have pointed
out : on the one hand, the absence of all error ; on the
NO PHYSICAL ERROR IN THE BIBLE. 253
other; indirect yet incontestable indications of a science
which preceded all that of man.
First fact. There is no physical error in the Word
of God.
If there were any, we have admitted it, the hook
would not be from God. "God is not man that he
should lie," nor the son of man that he should he mis-
taken. He behoves, no doubt, in order to his being
understood, to stoop to our weakness, but without in
the least partaking in it ; and his language will always
be found to witness to his condescension, never to his
ignorance.
This remark is still more serious than one would sup -
pose before having reflected on it. It becomes very
striking on a close examination.
Examine all the false theologies of the ancients and
moderns ; read in Homer or in Hesiod, the religious codes
of the Greeks ; study those of the Buddhists, those of
the Brahmins, those of the Mahommedans ; you will not
only find in these repulsive systems on the subject of
the Godhead, but will meet with the grossest errors on
the material world. You will be revolted with their
theology no doubt ; but their natural philosophy and
their astronomy also, ever allied to their religion, will
be found to rest on the most absurd notions.
Read in the Chou-king and the Y-king . of the
Chinese, their fantastic systems on the five elements
(woo,d, fire, earth, metal, and water), and on their om-
nipotent influences on all divine and human affairs. 1
Read in the tihaster, in the Pouran, in the four books
of the Vedham, or law of the Hindus, their revolting
cosmogony. The moon is 50,000 leagues higher than
the sun ; it shines with its own light ; it animates our
body. Night is caused by the sun's setting behind the
mountain Someyra, situated in the middle of the earth,
and several thousand miles high. Our earth is flat and
i Panthier, Les livres sacr6s de 1'Orient (Paris, 1840), pp. 15, 89.
94, 146, &c.
254 MONSTROUS ERRORS OF PAGANISM.
triangular, composed of seven stages, each -with its own
degree of beauty, its own inhabitants, and its own sea,
the first of honey, another of sugar, another of butter,
another of wine ; in fine, the whole mass is borne on
the heads of countless elephants which, in shaking
themselves, cause earthquakes in this nether world ! *
In one word, they have placed the whole history of
their gods in relations at once the most fantastic and
the most necessary with the physical world and all the
phenomena of the universe. Thus, the missionaries of
India have often repeated that a telescope, silently
planted in the midst of the holy city of Benares, or in
the ancient Ava, would prove a battery, powerful as
lightning, for overturning the whole system of Brahma,
and the whole of that of Boudhou.
Read farther the philosophers of Greek and Roman
antiquity, Aristotle, Seneca, Pliny, Plutarch, Cicero.
How many expressions of opinion will you not find there,
any single one of which would be enough to compro-
mise all our doctrines of inspiration, if it could be met
with in any book of Holy Scripture ! Read Mahomet's
Koran, making mountains to be created " to prevent
the earth from moving, and to hold it fast as if with
anchors and cables." What do I say ? Read even the
cosmogony of Buffon, or some of Voltaire's sneers on
the doctrine of a deluge, or on the fossil animals of a
primitive world. We will go much farther. Read
again, we do not say the absurd reasonings of the pagans,
of Lucretius, of Pliny, or of Plutarch, against the theory
of the antipodes, but even the fathers of the Christian
Church. Hear the theological indignation of the ad-
mirable Augustine, who says that it is opposed to
the Scriptures ; and the scientific eloquence of Lactan-
tius, who considers it so. opposed to common sense :
" Num aliquid loqmmlur ! " he exclaims ; " is there
any man so silly as to believe that men exist having
their feet above their heads, trees with their fruit hang
1 Modern Lni. Hist. vol. vi. p. 275.
ERRORS OF UNINSPIRED CHRISTIANS. 255
ing downwards, rain, snow, and hail falling topsy
turvy!" "They would answer you," he adds, "by main-
taining that the earth is a globe ! Quid dicam de Us
nescio, qui cum s&mel aberraverint, constanter in stultitia
perseverant, et vanis vana defendunt J" " One knows not
what to say of such men, who, when they have once
run into error, persist in their folly, and defend one
absurdity by another ! " 1
Listen, farther, to the legate Boniface, who brought
\ 7 irgilius, for his opinion in this matter, as a heretic be-
fore the Pope; listen to Pope Zachary treating that
unhappy bishop as homo malignus. " If it be proved,"
says he, " that Virgilius maintains the existence of
other men under this earth, call a council, condemn
him, put him out of the Church, depose him from the
priesthood ! " Listen, at a later period, to the whole
clergy of Spain, and especially to the imposing Council
of Salamanca, indignant at the geographical system by
which Christopher Columbus was led to look for a
whole new continent. Listen, at the epoch of Newton's
birth, to the great Galileo, who " ascended," says Kepler,
" the highest ramparts of the universe," and who justi-
fied at once by his genius and by his telescope the dis-
owned and condemned system of Copernicus ; behold
him groaning, at the age of eighty, in the prisons of
Rome, for having discovered the movement of the earth,
.after having had to pronounce these words, ten years
before (28th June 1633), before their Eminences, at
the palace of the Holy Office : " I, Galileo, in the seven-
tieth year of my age, on my knees before your Emi-
nences, having before my eyes, and touching with my
own hands, the Holy Scriptures, abjure, curse, and
detest, the error of the earth's movement."
What might we not have been entitled to say of the
Scriptures, had they expressed themselves on the phe-
nomena of nature, as these have been. spoken of by all
the ancient sages ? had they referred all to four ele-
1 On False Knowledge, book iii. chap. 24.
256 ERRORS OF THE ANCIENT SAGES.
ments, as people did for so long a period ? had they
said the stars were of crystal, as did Philolaus of Cro-
tona; and had they, like Empedocles, lighted up the two
hemispheres of our world with two suns ? had they
taught, like Leucippus, that the fixed stars, set ablaze
by the swiftness of their diurnal movement round the
earth, feed the sun with their fires? had they, like
Diodorus of Sicily, and all the Egyptian sages, formed
the heavens and the earth by the motion of the air and
the natural ascent of fire ? or had they thought, like
Philolaus, that the sun has only a borrowed light, and
is only a mirror, which receives and sends down to us
the light of the celestial spheres ? had they, like Anaxa-
goras, conceived it to be a mass of iron larger than the
Peloponnesus, and the earth to be a mountain, whose
roots stretched infinitely downwards ? had they ima-
gined the heaven to be a solid sphere, to whiclj the
fixed stars are attached, as was done by Aristotle, and
almost all the ancients ? had they called the celestial
vault ajirmamentum, or a <rregw,,a, as their interpreters
have done, both in Latin and in Greek? had they
spoken, as has been done so recently, and even among
people professing Christianity, of the influence exerted
by the movements of the heavens on the elements of
this lower world, on the characters of men, and on the
course of human affairs ? Such is the natural proneness
of all nations to this superstition, that, notwithstanding .
their religion, the ancient Jews, and the Christians
themselves, equally fell into it. " The modern Greeks,"
says D'Alembert, 1 " have carried it to excess ; hardly do
we find one of their authors who does not, on all occa-
sions, speak of predictions by the stars, of horoscopes,
and talismans, so that there was hardly an edifice in
Constantinople, and in all Greece, that had not been
erected according to the rules of the apotelesmatic astro-
logy." French historians observe, that astrology was so
much in fashion under Catherine de Medicis, that
Encycl. ou Diet. raia. des Sciences, &c., t. i. p. 663. (Lucca, 1758.)
NO ASTROLOGY IN THE SCRIPTURES. 257
people dared not undertake any thing of importance
without having consulted the stars ; and even under
Henry III. and Henry IY., the predictions of astrologers
formed the engrossing suhject of ordinary conversation
at court. " We have seen, towards the close of the last
century," says Ph. Giulani, 1 "an Italian send Pope In-
nocent XI. a prediction, in the manner of a horoscope,
on Yienna, at that time besieged by the Turks, and
which was very well received." And in our own days
the Count de Boulainvilliers lias written very seriously
on the subject.
Open now the Bible ; study its fifty sacred authors,
from that wonderful Moses who held the pen in the wil-
derness, four hundred years before the war of Troy,
down to the fisherman, son of Zebedee, who wrote fif-
teen hundred years afterwards, in Ephesus and in Pat-
mos, under the reign of Domitian ; open the Bible, and
try if you can to find any thing of this sort there. No.
None of those blunders which the science of every suc-
cessive age discovers in the books of those that preceded
it ; none of those absurdities, above all, which modern
astronomy points out, in such numbers, in the writings
of the ancients, in their sacred codes, in their systems
of philosophy, and in the finest pages even of the fathers
of the Church ; no such errors can be found in any of
our sacred books; nothing there will ever contradict
what, after so many ages, the investigations of the learn-
ed world have been able to reveal to us of what is cer-
tain in regard to the state of our globe or of that of the
heavens. Carefully peruse our Scriptures from one end
to the other, in search of such blemishes there ; and while
engaged in this research, remember that it is a book
which speaks of every thing, which describes nature,
which proclaims its grandeur, which tells the story of
its creation, which informs us of the structure of the
heavens, of the creation of light, of the waters, of the
atmosphere, of the mountains, of animals, and of plants;
1 Encycl. ou Diet. raia. des Sciences, &c., t. i. p. 664.
258 THE SCRIPTURES VARIOUS, fET TRUE.
it is a book that tells us of the first revolutions of the
world, and foretells to us also the last ; a book that re-
lates them in circumstantial narratives, exalts them in a
sublime poesy, and chants them in strains of fervent
psalmody ; it is a book replete with the glow of orien-
tal rapture, elevation, variety, and boldness ; it is a
book which speaks of the earth and of things visible, at
the same time that it speaks of the celestial world and
of things invisible ; it is a book to which nearly fifty
writers of every degree of mental cultivation, of every
rank, of every condition, and separated by fifteen hun-
dred years from each other, have successively put their
hand ; it is a book composed first in the centre of Asia,
among the sands of Arabia, or in the deserts of Judea,
or in the fore- court of the temple of the Jews, or in the
rustic schools of the prophets of Bethel and of Jericho,
or in the sumptuous palaces of Babylon, or on the ido-
latrous banks of Chebar ; and afterwards, at the centre
of western civilisation, amid the Jews with their mani-
fold ignorance, amid polytheism and. its ideas, as well as
in the bosom of pantheism and its silly philosophy ; it
is a book the first writer of which had been for the space
of forty years a pupil of the magicians of Egypt, who
looked upon the sun, and the stars, and the elements as
endowed with intelligence, as re-acting upon the ele-
ments, and as governing the world by continual eflluxes;
it is a book the first chapters of which preceded by
more than NINE HUNDRED YEARS the most ancient phi
losphers of ancient Greece and of Asia, the Thaleses,
the Pythagorases, the Zaleucuses, the Xenophaneses, the
Confuciuses ; it is a book which carries its narratives
even into the field of the invisible world, even into the
hierarchies of the angels, even into the remotest realms
of futurity, and the glorious scenes of the last day ;
well then, search through these 50 authors, search
through these 66 books, search through these 1189
chapters, and these 31,173 verses. . . . search for one
single error of those thousands with which ancient and
modern books abound, when they speak either of the
THE SCRIPTURES POETICAL, YET TRUE. 259
heaven or. of the earth, or of their revolutions, or of their
elements ; search, but you will search in vain.
There is nothing constrained or reserved in its lan-
guage ; it speaks of all things and in all tones ; it is the
prototype, it is the unapproachable model ; it has been
the inspirer of all the most exalted productions of poetry.
Ask this of Milton, of the two Racines, of Young, of
Klppstock. They will tell you that this divine poesy is
of all the most lyrical, the boldest in its flights, and the
most sublime: it rises on a cherub and soars on the
wings of the wind. And yet never does this book do
violence to the facts or to the principles of a sound phi-
losophy of nature. Never will you find it in opposition,
in the case of a single sentence, with the correct notions
which science has enabled us to reach with regard to-
the form of our globe, its size, or its geology ; on the
vacuum and on space; on the inert and obedient mate-
riality of all the stars ; on the planets, on their masses,
on their courses, on their dimensions, or on their influ-
ences ; on the suns that people the depths of space, on
their number, on their nature, or their immensity. Just
as in speaking of the invisible world, and of a subject
so new, so unknown, and so delicate, as that of the an-
gels, this book has not one of its authors that, in the
course of the 1560 years which it took to write it, has
varied in the character of charity, humility, fervour, and
purity which belongs to those mysterious beings ; just as
in speaking of the relations of the celestial world with
God, never has one of these fifty writers, either in the
Old or in the New Testament, uttered a single word
that favours that constant leaning to pantheism which
characterises the whole philosophy of the Gentiles ; so
likewise you will not find one of the authors of the
Bible who, in speaking of the visible world, has suf-
ferred a single one of those expressions of opinion to
escape him, which, in other books, contradict the reality
of facts not one which makes the heaven to be a fir-
mament, as has been done by the Septuagint, St Jerome,
and all the Fathers of the Church not one that makes
260 NO PHYSICAL ERROR IN THE SCRIPTURES.
the world, as Plato did, an intelligent animal not one
that reduces all things here below to the four elements
of the physical system of the ancients not one that
holds with the Jews, with the Latins, with the Greeks,
with the finest minds of antiquity, with the great Tacitus
among the ancients, with the great De Thou among the
moderns, with the sceptic Michael Montaigne, that " the
stars have domination and power, not only over our
lives and the conditions of our fortune, but even over
our inclinations, our discourses, our wills ; that they
govern, impel, and agitate them at the mercy of their
influences ; and that (according as our reason teaches
us and finds it to be) the whole world feels the impul-
sion of the slightest celestial movements. Facia etenim
et vitas hominum suspendit ab astris ;"* not one that
speaks of the mountains as Mahomet has done, of the
cosmogony like Buffon, of the antipodes like Lucretius,
like Plutarch, like Pliny, like Lactantius, like St Au-
gustine, like Pope Zachary. Assuredly, were there to
be fcmnd in the Bible a single one of those errors that
abound among philosophers, as well ancient as modern,
our faith in the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures
would be more than compromised by it; we should
have to acknowledge that there are errors in the Word
of God, and that these delusive expressions are those of
a fallible writer, not those of the Holy Ghost ; for God is
not man that he should lie ; in him there is no variable-
ness, neither shadow of falsity ; and He to whom lying
lips are an abomination, could not have been capable of
contradicting himself and dictating that which is false.
There is no physical error, then, in the Scriptures;
and this great fact, which becomes all the more striking
the more narrowly we look into it, is the manifest proof
of an inspiration carried into their choice of the smallest
expressions they employ.
But we have more to say than this, and now come
to the second fact.
1 Essays, book ii. chap. 12.
PROFOUND SCIENCE OF THE SCRIPTURES. 261
Not only has the Bible not admitted any false state-
ment of opinion or expression ; but further, it has often
allowed words to escape which enable us to see, beyond
all possibility of our being mistaken, the science of the
Almighty. His grand aim, no doubt, is to reveal to us
the eternal glories of the invisible world, not the barren
secrets of that which is doomed to perish. Meanwhile,
however, it often happens that his language, when we
listen to it with attention, allows a science to be seen
which it is not his design to teach, but of which he
cannot be ignorant, because it is in him a great deep.
Not only will he never teach us any thing false, even
cursorily ; but, further, you will often stumble on words
which betray the voice of the Creator of all worlds.
Often you will remark in these a wisdom, a forethought,
an exactness, of which the ages of antiquity had no
idea, and which nothing but the discoveries of the
telescope, the calculating processes, and the science of
the moderns, have enabled us to appreciate ; so that its
language will be found to bear, by means of these traits,
the evident characters of the most entire inspiration.
The discretion and departure from usual practice shown
in its expressions, the nature of certain details, the
perfect propriety and divine adaptation of which to the
facts have remained unrevealed till three thousand
years afterwards ; the reserve of the language, some-
times its very hardihood, and its strangeness for the
time in which it was written : all these signs will enable
you to recognize the savant par excellence^ the Ancient
of days, who addresses himself to his children no doubt,
but who speaks as the father of the family, and who
knows the whole of his house.
When the Scripture speaks of the form of our earth,
it makes it A GLOBE. 1 When it speaks of the position
of this globe in the bosom of the universe, it HANGS IT
UPON NOTHING (ntt^a ^j>). 2 When it speaks of its age,
not only does it place its creation, as well as that of the
1 Isa. xl. 22; Job. xxvi, 10; Prov. viii. 27.
2 Job. xxvi. 7 (xfiftaiw vfo I*) tutu/if).
262 THE HEAVENS AN EXPANSE.
heavens, m THE BEGINNING, that is, before ages which
it cannot or will not number; but, further, it takes care
to place before the disembroilment of chaos and the
creation of man, that of angels and archangels, princi-
palities and powers, their probation, the fall of some
and their ruin, the perseverance of others and their
glory. 1 When it speaks, afterwards, of the origin of
our continents, and of the last creation of plants, ani-
mals, and men, it then gives to our new world, and to
this proud race of ours, so young an age, that men of
all times, amoiig all earth's peoples, and even in our
modern schools, have foolishly revolted at it ; still it is
an age .to which they have been compelled to resign
themselves since the labours of the De Lues, the Cuviers,
and the Bucklands, have so fully demonstrated that the
state of the globe's surface, as well as the monuments
of history and those of science, must compel alike the
learned and the vulgar to submit to it. When it speaks
of the heavens, it employs, in alluding to them and de-
nning them, the most philosophic and the most beautiful
expression ; an expression which the Greeks in their
Septuagint, the Latins in the Vulgate, and all the
Church Fathers in their discourses, have made bold to
correct, and which they have perverted from its proper
meaning, because it seemed opposed to the science of
their times. The heavens, in the Bible, are the EX-
PANSE, expansum, ypn ; 2 that is to say, it is the void, or
the ether, pr the immensity, and not thejirmamentum of
St Jerome ; nor the tfrsgiw/ia of the Alexandrine inter-
preters; nor the eighth heaven, firm, solid, crystalline, and
incorruptible of Aristotle, and all the ancients. And
although this, which is so remarkable a term of the
Hebrew, recurs seventeen times in the Old Testament,
and although seventeen times the seventy have ren-
dered it by angeu/Aa, (firmament), never has the New
Testament thought fit to make use, in this sense, of
1 Nehem. ix. 6; Col. i. 16; Dan. vii. 10, compare with Jude 6;
Gen. iii. 1, 13, 15; Apoc. xx. 2, xii. 9, 12; Gen. Hi. 24; John viii.44,-
2 Pet. ii. 4, 9, 10; John xii. 81. a Gen. i. 6; Pa. xix. 6.
LIGHT CREATED BEFORE THE SUN. 263
that expression of the Greek interpreters. 1 When it
speaks of light, it represents it to us as an element in-
dependent of the sun, and as anterior by three epochs
to that in which that great luminary was kindled; 2 thus
anticipating the systems of the moderns, whom we have
seen led, along with the great Newton, to suppose
in the universe an ether, eminently subtile, powerfully
elastic, and difrused every where, the contractions and
dilatations of which would produce, not only the various
phenomena of light, but those too of gravitation. 3
When it speaks of the creation of plants, it makes
them vegetate, grow, and bear seed before the appearance
of the suii, and under conditions of light, heat, and
humidity, which were not those under which our vege-
tables live at the present day;* and it is thus that it
reveals to us, some thousands of years ago, an order
of things which the Fossil Botany of these late times
of ours has declared incontestable, and the neces-
sary existence of which is attested by the gigantic
forms of the vegetables lately discovered in Canada,
and at Baffin's Bay; some, like M. Marcel de Ser-
res, 5 having recourse, in order to explain it, to a ter-
restrial magnetism at that time more intense, or to
more luminous aurora boreales ; others, like M. de
Candolle, 6 to a great inclination of the ecliptic, al-
though in reality (according to the famous theorem of
La Grange) the mechanism of the heavens confines
within very narrow limits this variation of the planetary
1 It has made use of it only once, and that in speaking of some-
thing quite different from the heavens. Col. i. 5.
* Gen. i. 4, 14.
8 This hypothesis of etherial pulsations and of a vibrating medium
expanded every where, was the constant idea of this incomparable
philosopher, in his most elevated views on the constitution of the
universe. He even deduced from it the explanation of all the phe-
nomena of combination, cohesion, elasticity, and of movement, which
eeem to be produced by intangible and imponderable principles.
(See his Letter to Dr Boyle on the Cause of Weight : his Memoir
addressed to the Royal Society of London in Dec. 1675 : and two
articles of Baren Meurice in the Bibl. Uni. de Geneve, 1822, p. 79).
4 Gen. i. 12. * Memoires de Marcel de Serres.
Bibliotheque Uuiverselle, Iviii., 1835.
24
264 PRIMITIVE AND SECONDARY MOUNTAINS.
orbs. 1 When it speaks of the air, the weight of which
was unknown before the time of Galileo, it tells us that
at the creation " God gaye to the air ITS WEIGHT (Vpico),
and to the waters their just measure." 2 When it speaks
of our atmosphere and of the upper waters, 8 it assigns
to them an importance which the science of the moderns
alone has been able to demonstrate;* seeing that, accord-
ing to their calculations, the force annually employed
by nature for the formation of clouds is equal to an
amount of work which the whole human race could not
do in less than 200,000 years. 5 And when it separates
the higher waters from the lower, it is by an expansion,
and not by a solid sphere, as its imprudent translators
would do, both in Greek and in Latin. When it speaks
of the mountains, it distinguishes them, in point of
fact, into primitive and secondary ; it speaks of them
as generated^ as raised,, as melted like wax ; it lowers the
valleys ; in a word, it speaks as a geological poet of our
own days would do. " The mountains arose, Lord,
and the valleys went down unto the place which thou
hadst founded for them." 6 When it speaks of the hu-
man races of every tribe, of every colour, and of every
language, it gives one and the same origin, notwith-
standing that the philosophy of all ages would so often
have revolted against this truth; which we have seen
that of the moderns forced at length to acknowledge. 7
When it speaks of the internal state of our globe, it
declares to us two great facts, of which the learned were
1 The oscillations of the ecliptic, including both sides of its mean
position, cannot exceed 1^ degree.
3 Job. xxviii. 25. a Gen. i. 7.
* See Leslie's Calculations.
8 Annuaire du Bur. des Longitudes, 1835, p. 196. Arago, in this
calculation, supposes that 800 millions form the population of the
globe, and that the half only of that number can work.
6 Ps. civ. 8, 6, 9; Gen. ii. 14, viii. 4; Ps. xc. 2; Prov. viii.25; Ps.
xcvii. 5, cxliv. 6; Zech. xiv. 4, 8; Ezek. xlvii.
7 See Sumner, The Records of the Creation, vol. i. p. 286; and
Professor Zimmerman, Eistoire GeograuMque de PHomme; Wise-
man, Third Discourse on the Natural History of the Human Race,
Tol. i. p. 149.
INCONSIDERABLE DEPTH OF THE SEA. 265
long ignorant, but now rendered incontestable by their
last discoveries ; the one relating to its solid crust, and
the other to the great waters which it covers. When
it speaks of its solid envelope, it informs us, that if its
surface gives us bread, underneath (rm-in) the earth is
ON FIRE; 1 that, besides, it is reserved unto fire, and
that it will be burnt in the last times, with all the works
that are therein. 2 And when it speaks of the waters
which our. globe contains, it alone accounts, at least
in this respect, for the immense cataclysms which (ac-
cording to what we are told by men of science them-
selves) have completely, and for long periods, submerged
it at different epochs. And while the latter tell us of
the inconsiderable depth of the seas ; while they assure
us that a rise of two hundred metres only, or of once-
and-a-half the height of the tower of Strasbourg, would
suffice for the disappearance of the Baltic, the North
Sea, the English and tSt George's Channels ; and that
Mont Blanc, or at least Chimborazo, if thrown into
the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean, would be found
high enough to form an island ; while La Place thought
there was ground to conclude, from the size of the tides,
that the mean depth of the ocean does not exceed a
million of metres "(the height of the Saleve or of Hecla);
while we have thus demonstrated to us the absolute
insufficiency of the seas for these immense submersions
which our globe has undergone ; . . . . the Scripture
teaches us that the earth was taken out of the water,
and subsists in the water, 8 "and that its solid crust
covers a GREAT DEEP (ninn.), the waters of which were
broken up (wpas)? w i tn surges and violence, 4 at the epoch
of the deluge, as at that of chaos and of the countless
ages that preceded it." When it speaks of the deluge,
it supposes submersions and subversions, which all
unbelievers of former times said were too great to be
believed, and which at the present day geologists have
1 Job xxviii. 5. Literally, " Underneath it is turned up, and as
it were fire."
a 2 Pet. iii. 7, 10. a 2 Pet. iii. 5. < Gen. vii. 11.
266 SUBMARINE FIRES.
found too insufficient rather to explain all the subver-
sions which our earth has discovered to them. When
it relates the preparatives and the progressive steps of
that immense cataclysm, it reveals facts which the
science of the moderns may not yet have universally
adopted, hut neither has it been able to contradict them
by other facts : it assumes the existence of an interior
fire, which, by raising the temperature of the seas
and of the deep waters, must have produced, on the
one hand, an enormous evaporation, and impetuous
rains, as if the flood-gates of the heavens had. been
opened; and, on the other, a resistless dilatation, which
not only raised the waters from their abysses, broke
up the fountains of the GREAT DEEP, and swelled
them into mighty waves reaching to the top of the
highest mountains, 1 but caused immense stratifications
of carbonate of lime, under the double action of an
enormous heat and of a pressure equivalent to 80,000
atmospheres. When it describes the state of our globe,
in the days which preceded the bringing of order out
of chaos, it assumes the existence in it of an internal
heat, and of submarine fires, while covering the whole
of it with water in a liquid state. 2 When it speaks of the
creation of birds and fishes, it assign's them a common
origin; and we know that modern naturalists have
ascertained, that between those two classes of animals
1 Water dilates by l-23d in passing from the temperature of
melting ice to that of boiling water : a rise of 16 or 17 degrees of
Reaumur will augment its volume, then, by 1-lllth. Now we find,
by an easy calculation, that the quantity of water necessary to sub-
merge the earth to the height of 1-1 000th of the radius of our globe,
is equal to l-333d of its entire volume, or to 1-lllth of its third. If,
then, we suppose the third of the terrestrial globe to be metallic
(at the specific mean weight of 12J), that the second third is solid
(at the weight of 2), and that the third third is water; then, 1st,
the mean specific weight of the whole globe will be equal to 5i
(according to the conclusions of Maskeline and of Cavendish) ; and,
2d, a rise of 16 degrees of Reaumur in the mean temperature of the
mass of the waters, would suffice, in the days of the deluge, to sub-
merge the earth to the depth of 6368 metres that is to say, to 1546
metres above Mont Blanc. This was very nearly the hypothesis
previously suggested by Sir Henry Englefield.
2 Gen. i. 2.
SmiTERRANEAN WATERS. 267
there are deep-seated points of resemblance, which there
is nothing to indicate to our eyes, but which are re-
vealed in their anatomy, and even in the microscopic
form of the globules of their blood. 1 When it lays an
arrest on the sun that is to say, on the earth's rotation
in the days of Joshua the son of Nun, it takes care,
too, to make the moon to stop also, in the same propor-
tion with the sun, and from the same cause; a precau-
tion, as Chaubard has shown, 2 which never would have
been thought of by an astronomy that was a stranger
to the knowledge of our daily movement; since, after
all, nothing more was required for the purposes of this
miracle than the prolongation of the day. 8 "When it
speaks of the Lord's coming as a flash of lightning, in the
twinkling of an eye, at the last day, it once more bears
witness to the rotation of the earth, and to the exist-
ence of the antipodes ; for, at that solemn moment, it
says it will be day for one part of men, and it will be
night at the same hour for another part. 4 When it de-
scribes the past and future riches of the land of Canaan,
to which a marvellous force of vegetation is promised
for the last times, it speaks of it as rich, not only in
springs, but in subterranean waters, 8 and seems to anti-
cipate the perforations by which the moderns have
learned to fertilize an arid country, by boring the soil,
so as to cause water to gush up. When it speaks of
the language of men, it gives it a primitive unity, which
a first study of our innumerable idioms seems to contra-
dict, but which comes to be confirmed by a more pro-
1 Memoires du Dr J. L. Prevost, a Geneve.
8 Elemens de Geologic par Chaubard; 1 vol. in 8vo, Paris. The
author establishes there, by numerous arguments, the chronological
coincidence of Joshua's miracle with the deluges of Ogyges and
Deucalion. He there remarks, that these two cataclysms relate to
the same epoch, lasted the same time, were accompanied with the
same catastrophes, and produced currents in the same direction,
flowing from west to east.
a Josh. x. 12. * Luke xvii. 31, 34; Matt. xxiv. 3, &c.
8 Deut. viii. 7 : "A land of brooks of water, of fountains, and depths
that spring out of valleys and hills " (nanri). See also Isa. xxxv. 6;
Ezek. xxxi, 4; Ps. Ixxviii. 15, 16.
268 DIMENSIONS OF THE ARK.
found examination. When it describes the deliverance
of Noah, it gives to the ark dimensions which we at
first sight pronounce to be too small, which we would
have made a hundred times greater had we been
charged with that narrative, but which a study of the
fact has made appear sufficient. When it speaks to us
of the number of the stars, instead of supposing them
to be a thousand (1022), as in the catalogue of Hip-
parchus, or as in that of Ptolemy; whilst, in both
hemispheres taken together, the most practised eyes are
incapable of discovering more than five thousand ; whilst,
before the invention of the telescope, a man could not
see, even in the finest night, more than a thousand, the
Scripture calls them INNUMERABLE ; it compares them,
as Herschel would do, to sand on the sea-shore ; it tells
us that God has sown them with his hand in the im-
mensity of space like dust, and that, nevertheless, " he
calls them all by their name." When it speaks of that
immensity, hark with what a learned and divine wis-
dom it portrays it to you! how guarded it remains in
its noble poesy, and how wise in its sublimity ! " The
heavens declare the glory of God, and the EXPANSE
showeth his handywork. There is no speech nor lan-
guage; nevertheless we hear their voice." When it
speaks of the relations borne by the stars to this sublu-
nary world, instead of supposing them animated, as the
ancients did instead of ever attributing to them some
influence on human affairs, as was fondly imagined for
so long a period even by the professedly Christian
populations of Italy and France, down to the days of the
Reformation, they are composed of inert matter, it tells
you, shining, no doubt, but passively acted upon. The
heavens, even the heaven of heavens, advance with the
order, consistency, and unity of an army which ad-
vances to battle. " Lift up your eyes on high, and
behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out
their host by number; he calleth them all by names ;
not one faileth. Why sayest thou, Jacob, My way
is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over
THE SCRIPTURAL HEAVENS. 269
from mv God?" 1 When it describes the heavens, it
takes care to distinguish three ; first, the heaven of the
birds, of tempests, of the powers of the air and spiritual
wickednesses; next, the heaven of the stars; and,
finally, the third heaven, the heaven of heavens. But
when it speaks of the God of all this, mark how beau-
tiful its language ! The sound of his thunder is in the
rotundity of the air, it tells us ; 2 but the heavens, and
even the heaven of heavens, cannot contain him. 3 " In
what place would you enclose him ? and what likeness
will ye compare unto him ? He hath set his glory above
the heavens, and he even humbleth himself when he
beholds the heavens ! Were you to take the wings of
the morning, and fly with the speed of light, whither
shouldst thou go from his face, or whither shouldst thou
flee from his presence?"* But after having deemed
that it has said enough of all those visible grandeurs, it
tells us that " these are but the skirts of his ways ; and
how small is the portion that we know of them ! " And,
finally, when holy Scripture thinks enough has been
said of all the grandeurs even of the Creator of these
immensities, listen to it farther. " He telleth the num-
ber of the stars," it says to you, " and he healeth the
broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds." fi "Won-
derful in counsel, and magnificent in the means he
employs, he putteth thy tears into his bottle ; a sparrow
falleth not to the ground without his permission ; the
very hairs of your head are numbered." 6 " The eternal
God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting
arms." 7 "0 my God, how manifold are thy works'
and thou hast magnified thy Word above all thy
name ! " 8
And now, amid all these proofs of greatness . . .
1 Isa. xl. 26, 27.
* Ps. Ixxvii. 18. si Kings viii. 27.
4 Isa. xl. 18; Ps. viii. I, exiii. <5, cxxxix. 7.
5 Ps. cxlvii. 3, 4.
6 Ps. Ivi. 8; Isa. xxviii. 29; Matt. x. 29, 3(1.
' Deut. xxxiii. 26, 27. 8 Ps. cxxxviii. 2.
270 DIFFICULTIES BECOME PROOFS.
c where shall wisdom be found ? and where is the place
of understanding ? The depth saith, It is not in me ;
and the sea answers, It is not with me ! God alone
understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the
place thereof. . . . He who looketh unto the ends of the
earth, and seeth under the whole heaven ; to make the
weight for the winds ; and he weigheth the waters by
measure. When he made a decree for the rain and a
way for the lightning of the thunder ; then did he see
wisdom, and sound it to the bottom ; and unto man he
said, Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ; and
to depart from evil, is understanding ! 5>1
Such, then, is the inspiration of the holy Scriptures ;
and it is thus we may see there celestial reflections em-
anating from the very places where people had thought
they might detect blemishes. If, with a culm and re-
verential hand, you uplift the veil of obscurity with
which it required, on your account, to shroud its face, you
will discover there a majestic brightness ; for it comes
down, as Moses did, from the holy mountain, and brings
to you in its hands the tables of the testimony ! At the
very place where you had dreaded an obscurity, you find
a splendour ; at the place where people had noted an
objection, God has turned it into a testimony ; at the
place where there was a doubt, you find an assurance.
We conclude, then, again, that with regard to this
seventh objection, the difficulties become proofs ; and
that, on this head, as well as on so many others, we
cannot fail at every page to recognise in the whole of
the Bible a communication from God.
But let us listen farther to a last objection,
1 JobxrriiL
DECLARATIONS OF ST PAUL. 271
SECTION VII.
THE DECLARATIONS OF PAUL HIMSELB
It is idle to dream of disputing the fact of a partial
and intermittent inspiration in the Scriptures (we are
Sometimes told) since the apostle Paul himself has clearly
decided the question. Has he not carefully, in point
of fact, distinguished what he pronounced by inspi-
ration from what he advanced in his own name only,
as a simple believer ? And do we not find him, in his
First Epistle to the Corinthians, express this distinction
in the clearest manner, and three several times, on the
occasion of the several questions that had been addressed
to him on the subject of marriage ?
First of all, at the 25th verse of chapter vii., when he
says in so many terms, " Now, concerning virgins, I
have no commandment of the Lord ; yet I give AN AD-
VICE as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be
faithful;"
Next, at the 1 Oth verse, when he writes, " And
unto the married I command (NOT I, BUT THE LORD),
Let not the wife depart from her husband, and let not
the husband put away his wife ;"
And finally, at the 12th verse, where he adds, "But
to the rest speak I, not the Lord (I, AND NOT THE LORD),
If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, ... let
him not put her away," &c.
One sees clearly, then, say the objectors, from these
three sentences, that there are in the apostle's epistles,
passages that are Paul's, and other passages that are
God's ; that is to say, inspired passages and others that
are not so.
The reply is easy.
No sooner do we examine more narrowly into the
passages on which the objection is laid, than we per-
25
272 81 PAUL'S DECLARATIONS ANALYZED.
ceive that they cannot be legitimately employed against
the doctrine of a plenary inspiration. Far from impos-
ing limits on the divinity of the apostolic sayings, these
verses, on the contrary, hold a language which the
most entire and sovereign inspiration alone could au-
thorize. Paul could not speak thus without putting his
epistles, as Peter has done, I was about to say "ON
A LEVEL with THE OTHER holy Scriptures," we must say
ABOVE them (inasmuch as he gives utterance there to a
more recent and more obligatory expression of the Lord's
desires). We proceed to judge how far this is the case.
What is it that, in this 7th chapter, the apostle of Jesus
Christ does? He treats three cases of conscience. As
to one of these cases, God, says he, has neither com-
manded nor interdicted any thing. " He that marrieth
his virgin sinneth not. I am not, therefore, charged with
any order ; but, in my character as an apostle, it is only
an advice that I have to give you on the Lord's part,"
and he then takes care to add, at the 40th verse,
" And I think, also, that I have the Spirit of God."
The Lord, therefore, here desires to leave you free, says
the apostle ; he would not lay a snare for you ; and if
you do not think yourselves bound to follow the general
advice that is given you, you violate no command-
ment you sin not. Only, he who marries does well;
he who marries not, does better.
As for the other case, on the contrary, beware ; FOR
THERE IS A COMMANDMENT OF THE LoRD. The Lord
has already pronounced his will (Matt. v. 31, 32 ; Mai.
ii. 14, 15) ; and I have nothing new to declare unto
you : the Old Testament and Jesus Ohrist have spoken.
It is NOT I, therefore, the apostle of Jesus Christ, it is
THE LORD who has already made known his will to
you : " To such Christians as are married, I command
(not I, but the Lord), that the wife depart not from her
Lasband, and that the husband put not away his wife."
-( Verses 10, 11.)
But, as for the third case, that is to say, as respects
the brethren who may find themselves united to unbe-
ST PAUL'S DECLARATIONS ANALYZED. 273
lieving wives, you have a commandment of the Lord's
under the Old Testament ; " I have repealed it ; and /
think that I have the Spirit of God ! I abolish, therefore,
the old order of things, and am commissioned to put a
contrary order in its place. It is not the Lord (v. 12),
that tells you to keep with you an unbelieving wife ; it
is I, Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ, not of men,
neither by man, but by God the Father, and by Jesus
Christ, whom he raised from the dead." 1
Here, then, we see it as clear as noonday, that the
apostle, instead of appealing to the Lord's utterance of
old, repeals it, in order to substitute an opposite order
in its place ; so that this passage, far from invalidating
inspiration, fully confirms it ; seeing that it would
amount to the most outrageous blasphemy, if the apostle
had not felt that in holding this language he was the
mouth of God, and had he ventured to say of his own
proper authority, " It is not the Lord, IT is I ! I, I say,
and not the Lord if any brother has an unbelieving
wife, let him not send her away !" The Lord had said
the very contrary. 2
We must acknowledge, then, that these verses of St
Paul, far from giving their sanction to the supposition of
any human mixture in the writings of the New Testa-
ment, stand there to attest to us that in their epistles, and
in the most familiar details of their epistles, the apostles
were the mouth of God, and placed themselves, not
only in the same line with Moses and the ancient pro-
phets, but, further, above them ; inasmuch as a second
expression of God's will ought to take precedence of
that which went before it ; and as the New Testament
ought to surpass the Old, if not in excellence, at least
in authority.
We have heard some persons still farther oppose to
us, as an admission of the intermittence and imperfec-
tion of his inspiration, those words of St Paul, in which.
Gal. i. 1. a Deut. viL 3; 1 Kings xi. 2; Ezra x. 2, 3, 11, 19
274 ST PAUL'S CONFESSED IGNORANCE.
after having told the Corinthians 1 of his having been
caught up into the third heaven, he adds, " Whether in
the body or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth"
" Can it be supposed," it has been said, " that the Holy
Ghost knew not how this miracle was performed ? Ne-
cessarily, therefore, we must refer such a verse to Paul,
not to God."
We reply, that though the Holy Ghost was not igno-
rant of it, Paul was ; and that the Holy Ghost desired
that Paul himself should tell us of his ignorance. Can
it be forgotten that God has never ceased, in revealing
himself to us in the Scriptures, to employ the personality
of the sacred writers, and that it is under this form that
he has desired almost constantly to instruct his Church ?
When David, " speaking by the Spirit," 2 exclaims in
the Psalms, " that he acknowledges his transgressions,
and that his sin is ever before him, and that he was
shapen in iniquity," it is not the Holy Ghost, doubtless,
that acknowledges his own transgressions, and that has
his own sin before his eyes ; but it is the Holy Ghost
that put, for our sakes, those expressions of repentance
in the heart and on the lips of his humbled prophet.
It was in an analogous sense, then, that He could make
St Paul say, " Whether in the body, I cannot tell : God
knoweth."
We are not yet done, however, with these objections.
There still remain three more, which we have called
evasions ; because, instead of resting, like the former,
on some certain argument, or facts, they are rather
systems by which people imagine they can withdraw a
part of the Scriptures from the action of the divine in-
spiration. It remains for us, therefore, to examine
these.
> 2 Cor. xii. 2, 3. 2 Mark xii. 36; Acts w. 25
EVASIONS EXAMINED. 275
CHAPTER V.
EXAMINATION OF EVASIONS.
SEVERAL systems of exceptions, we have said, have
been proposed by some. There are persons who, while
they fully admit that the thoughts found in Scripture
have been given by God, would maintain, nevertheless,
that its style and expressions are purely human ; others
have excluded the inspiration of the historical books;
others, in fine, would make an exception of certain de-
tails, at least, which to them have appeared too trite,
and too remote from edification, to admit of our attri-
buting them to the Spirit of God.
SECTION I!
MIGHT NOT INSPIRATION PERTAIN TO THE THOUGHTS ONLY,
WITHOUT EXTENDING TO THE WORDS?
" The prophets and the apostles," some say, " were, no
doubt, inspired when they wrote their sacred books, in
so far as respected their thoughts; but we must believe,
that, beyond this, they were left to themselves as re-
spects their language ; so that in this written revelation
the ideas are God's, and the expressions those of a
man. The task of the sacred writers resembles, in
some sort, that of a man before whose eyes there have
been successively passed some very highly coloured pic-
tures, while he has been charged to describe thorn
276 INSPIRATION NECESSARILY EXTENDS TO WORDS.
merely in so far as they have passed before his eyes.
It is thus that the Divine Spirit is considered to have
presented the holy truths they announce to the view of
the evangelists and the prophets, leaving them no more
to do than simply to express them ; and this mode of
conceiving of what they did," it is added, " at once ac-
counts for the striking differences of style which their
writings exhibit."
We reply:
1. That this system is directly contrary to Scripture
testimony. The Bible declares itself to be written,
" not with the words which man's wisdom teacheth,
but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." * It calls itself
" the word of God," " the words of God," 2 " the voice
of God," " the oracles of God," 8 " the lively oracles of
God," 4 " the holy letters of God," 5 the scripture of
God." A scripture, or writing, is made up of letters
and words, and not of invisible thoughts only: but, we
are told, 8 "all SCRIPTURE is given by inspiration of
God." "What is WRITTEN, therefore, is inspired of God
(007Tfgu<rros); and that which is inspired of God is ALL
SCRIPTURE it is all that is written (iruaa ygap^).
2. While this system is contradictory to the Bible,
it is also most irrational. The ideas of our fellow- men
embody themselves in words ; and it is there only that
you can seize them. Souls are revealed to us only in
the flesh. You do not learn their character; you know
nothing of their desires or their experiences ; you do
not even suspect their existence; and betwixt you and
them there are no ties, until they have become clothed
with bodies, and have received organs, so that they can
manifest themselves to you. My most intimate friend
is known to me only by the language of his voice and
his gestures. If he had no power of employing these,
in vain might he remain for twenty years at my side :
he would be to me as if he were not.
1 1 Cor. ii. 13. 2 Throughout. a Rom. iii. 2.
Acts vii. 38. 2 Tim. iii. 15. e 2 Tim. iii. 16.
LANGUAGE THE MIRROR OP THE SOTJL. 277
More than this. There exists, in so far as we are
concerned, an inevitable dependence between souls and
their organs, betwixt their ideas and words. Not only
do we come to know the existence of the former only
by the language of the latter, but (even after they have
spoken to us) we can but guess only at their true
character, as long as we have not the assurance that
the organ has been the faithful interpreter of the mind,
that the word has truly reflected the idea, and the pro-
position the thought. And if we have some room to
apprehend that language has not been the pliant and
adequate servant of the will, we possess no certainty
that we have not been mistaken. Though we might
know that God himself had placed in the soul of a
writer the purest thoughts of heaven, still there would
always be required, in order to our having through
these words a certain revelation of them, that there
should be given us the assurance that the language is
exact, that the reflections are faithful, and that they re-
produce to us without alteration the objects deposited
in the secret chambers of that soul.
Language, then, is the wondrous mirror which re-
flects to us the depths of the soul.
Were you a son weeping for the loss of a mother, and
were God, for your consolation, to desire that you should
see again, for some moments, in a looking- glass, the ever-
to-be-venerated features of that mother, would it be
enough that she herself were made to come down be-
hind you and occupy the place where the reflected light
would come from the object to your eyes in most abund
ance? Doubtless not, it would further be necessary
that the mirror should be without any twist, furrow, or
blemish. "Were it unequal and faithless, of what use
would it be to you ? You would have near you, it is
true, the smiling features of your own mother; her
inimitable look would bear towards you the ardent ex-
pression of her maternal good wishes and her august
benediction ; but all this would be in vain ; you would
have no better than a stranger before your eyes, one
278 NON-VERBAL INSPIRATION UTTERLY UNTENABLE.
perhaps of a hideous expression a deformed creature,
with features positively revolting ! O my good mother,
it is, then, no longer you ! you would exclaim. Thus
would it also he for you with the thoughts of God, if
left to receive them disfigured by the errors of the
human language that reflected them to us. It is no
longer thou, O thought of my God ! we should have
to say to it. It is necessary then for our security, that
we should have the divine guarantee as well for the
fidelity of the mirror as for the faithfulness of the
objects.
These reflections will suffice, no doubt, to enable us
to comprehend how irrational it is to think of receiving
with exactness and certainty the thoughts of another
through the medium of inexact and uncertain expres-
sions. Can you lay hold of these thoughts otherwise
than by words ? And without God's Avords, how can
you be sure of possessing his thoughts ?
3. This theory of a divine revelation, in which you
would have the inspiration of the thoughts without the
inspiration of the language, is so inevitably irrational
that it cannot be sincere, and proves false even to those
who propose it; for, without their suspecting it, it
makes them come much further down in their arguments
than their first position seems at a first glance to indicate.
Listen to them. Though the words are those of man,
say they, the thoughts are those of God. And how
will they prove this to you ? Alas ! once more, by at-
tributing to this Scripture from God, contradictions,
mistakes, proofs of ignorance ! Is it then the words
alone that they attack ? and are not these alleged errors
much more in the ideas than in the words ? So true it
is that we cannot separate the one from the other, and
that a revelation of God's thoughts ever demands a re-
velation of God's words also.
4. This theory is not only antibiblical, irrational, and
mischievous ; further, it is taken up arbitrarily, and
amounts at best to a gratuitous hypothesis.
5. Besides, it is very useless ; for it resolves no dif-
IT RESOLVES NO DIFFICULTY. 279
ficulty. You find it difficult, say you, to conceive how
the Holy Ghost could have given the words in Holy
Scripture ; but can you tell us any better how he gave
the thoughts ? Will it be more easy for you, for ex-
ample, to explain how God suggested to Moses the
knowledge of the different acts of the creation, or to St
John that of all the scenes of the last day, than to con-
ceive how he made them write the narrative of these
things in the language of the Hebrews, or in that of the
Greeks ?
6. But we have much more to say than this. That
which in this theory ought above all to strike every
attentive mind, is its extreme inconsistency, seeing that
those even who hold it most strenuously, are forced
withal to admit that, in its greatest part, the Scripture
behoved to be inspired to the men of God EVEN IN ITS
WORDS.
Suppose that the Holy Ghost were to call on you to
go down this morning to the public street, there to pro-
claim, in Russian or in Tamil, " the wonderful works
of God;" what would become of you, were he to be
content with inspiring you with ideas, without giving
you words ? You might have the third heaven before
your eyes, and in your heart the transports of arch-
angels, still you would have to remain as if dumb and
stupid before the persons composing this multitude. In
order to your inspiration being of any use to you, it
would be necessary that the periods, the phrases, and
even the smallest words of your discourse, should be
entirely given to you ? What do I say ? People might
very well dispense with your own thoughts, provided
you could make them hear, without even understanding
them, the thoughts of God in the words of God. Well,
then, let us carry this supposition into Jerusalem, and
into the persons of the apostles. When the fishermen
of Capernaum and Bethsaida, met in their upper cham-
ber on the day of Pentecost, received the command to
come down, and to go forth and publish, before that
people which had assembled from every region under
280 ARGUMENT FROM PARTICULAR EXAMPLES.
heaven, the wonderful works of God, in Latin, in Par-
thian, in Elamite, in Chaldean, in Coptic, in Arahic,
would not the giving of the words he necessary ? What
could they have done on that occasion without the
words ? Why, nothing ; while, with their words, they
could convert the world !
When, afterwards, in the church of Corinth, the
faithful who had received miraculous powers spoke in
the midst of the congregations in strange tongues, and
found it necessary that some other, to whom the gift of
interpretation had been given, should translate after
them the unknown words which they had uttered in
the ears of their brethren, was it not equally necessary
that the words and all the phrases should be entirely
dictated to them ? x When all the prophets, after having
written their sacred pages, set themselves to meditate
upon them with so much respect and care, as they
would have done to the oracles of a stranger prophet;
when they meditated upon them night and day, search-
ing what (as Peter tells us 2 ) the Spirit of Christ which
was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand
the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should
follow was it not, then, also necessary that all the
words should have been given them? When Moses
gives an account of the creation of the world, and of
the extrication of chaos ; when Solomon describes the
Eternal Wisdom ; when David recites, a thousand years
beforehand, the prayers of the Son of God on the cross ;
when Daniel relates in detail, and without very well
understanding them himself, the remote destinies of
the World and of the Church ; and when, in fine, John
continues, in his own prophecies, the revelations of the
prophet Daniel, was it not necessary that the smallest
words should be given to them ? and do not 'all inter-
preters, in reading them, acknowledge how far we might
be led away from the true meaning, by the smallest word
being put in the place cf some other word, by the tense
1 1 Cor xiv. 1 Pet. i. 10, 11.
WE LOOK TO THE BOOK NOT THE WRITERS. 281
of the verb being ill-chosen, by the imprudent placing
of a particle ?
From this, therefore, we must conclude, since so con-
siderable a part of the Scriptures is necessarily inspired,
even in its words, that the system of an inspiration of
the thoughts, without an inspiration of the language,
is inconsistent in the highest degree. There are not
two kinds of the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures ;
there are not two sorts of God's Oracles. If it was
" as moved by the Holy Ghost that holy men spoke,"
then all the Sacred Letters are divinely inspired ; and
that which is divinely inspired in the Sacred Letters is
ALL SCRIPTURE.
But these last reflections are about to conduct us to
something at once more simple and more important.
Here let the utmost caution be observed, for the ques
tion has been misrepresented. It has been said that
the sacred Scriptures were inspired by God ; and people
have asked themselves up to Avhat point this behoved
to be the case. The matter for inquiry, however, did
not lie there.
7. We have said, that the question relates to the BOOK,
and not to the WRITERS. You believe that God gave
them the thoughts always, and not always the words ;
but the Scripture tells us, on the contrary, that God has
given them always the words, and not always the thoughts.
As for their thoughts, while they were in the act ot
writing, God might inspire them with ideas more or less
lively, more or less pure, more or less elevated : that
interests my charity alone, but has no bearing on my
faith. The SCRIPTURE the Scripture which they have
transmitted to me, perhaps without themselves seizing
its meaning, at least without ever entirely comprehend-
ing it, this is what concerns me.
Paul might have been mistaken in his thoughts, when,
on appearing before the council of the priests, and not
r ecognizing God's high-priest, he ventured to say to
nirn, " God shall strike thee, thou whited wall ! " This
'.s of little consequence, however, provided I know thai
282 THE SACRED WRITERS SOMETIMES,
WHEN HE WRITES THE WORD OP GoD, " it is JeSUS Christ
that speaks in him I" 1
Peter might have been mistaken in his thoughts
when, refusing to believe that God could send him
among the heathen, he did not perceive and acknow-
ledge that " in every nation, they who turn to God are
accepted of him." He might have been still more
grievously mistaken when, at Antioch, he compelled
Paul to withstand him to the face, because he was to be
blamed, and because he walked not uprightly according
to the truth of the Gospel. 2 But how does this concern
me, after all, I repeat, at least as respects my faith ? For
the question is, not how I can know at what moments,
or in what measure, Paul, John, Mark, James, or Peter,
were inspired in their thoughts, or sanctified in their
conduct : what, above all, interests me, is to know that
all the sacred pages were divinely inspired ; that their
written words were the words of God ; and that, in giv-
ing these to us, they spoke, not in the words which
man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost
teacheth, 8 (oujc sv /da/ro? avdguirivqs ffopiag Xoyo/s) ;
that then it is NOT THEY that speak, but the Holy
Ghost;* in a word, that " God hath spoken BY THE
MOUTH of his prophets since the world began." 5
The sacred writers were SOMETIMES inspired ; but the
Holy Scriptures were so ALWAYS. Accordingly, the
times, the measures, the degrees, the alternations of the
inspiration of the men of God, are not for us an object
of faith ; but that which is an object of faith, is that the
Scripture is divinely inspired, and that that which is di-
vinely inspired is the whole Scripture. " Not one jot 01
tittle of it shall pass away."
There is doubtless an inspiration of thoughts, as there
is an inspiration of words ; but the first makes the
CHRISTIAN, while it is the second that makes the PRO-
PHET.
A true Christian is inspired in his thoughts : the Spi-
i 2 Cor. xiii. 3; 2 Gal. ii. 11-14.
1 Cor. ii. 13. * Mark xiii. 11. Acts iii. 21.
THE SCRIPTURES ALWAYS INSPIRED. 283
rit of God reveals to him the deep things of God j 1 it is
not flesh and blood that have made him know the coun-
sels of God and the glories of Jesus Christ, it is God the
Father ; 2 for the Holy Ghost leads him into all truth ; s
and he has been incapable of truly owning in his soul
Jesus as Lord (the Lord of lords) but by the Holy
Ghost.* Every true believer, then, is more or less in-
spired by God in his thoughts ; but he is not so in his
words. He is Christian, but not Prophet. The holiest
discourses of Cyprian, Augustine, Bernard, Luther,
Calvin, Beza, Leighton, are only the words of men on
the truths of God venerable words, no doubt, precious
and powerful words, and worthy of our utmost atten-
tion, because of the wisdom that has been given to them,
and of the abundant expression which we find in them
of the thought of God ; still these, after all, are but the
words of men they form but a sermon. It is quite
otherwise in the case of the prophet. The latter may
have, and he may not have, the thought of God in his
thought ; but that which he will always have, as long
AS HE SHALL SPEAK AS A PROPHET, IS " the WOrd of
God IN HIS MOUTH." The Spirit of God will speak by
him, and the word of God will be on his tongue. 6 He
will be the mouth of God, a mouth intelligent or unin-
telligent, voluntary or involuntary that is of little con-
sequence, provided that God's oracles flow from him,
and that I receive the thought of my God in the words
of my God.
In a word, one may be a Christian without having on
his lips the words of God, and one may be a prophet
without having on his heart or in his understanding the
thoughts of God ; but one cannot be a Christian without
having in his heart the thoughts of God, and one can-
not be a prophet without having on his lips the words
of God.
In the language of the Bible (this we shall ere long
establish), a prophet is a person in whose mouth God
1 1 Cor. ii. 10. 2 Matt. xvi. 17. 3 John xvi. 13.
4 1 Cor. xii 3. 6 2 Sam. *xiii. 2.
284 KINO SAUL AT SECHTJ AND NAIOTH.
puts, for a time, the words which he wishes to have
uttered upon earth. Such a person prophesied only by
intervals, " according as the Spirit gave him utterance." 1
One might not he a prophet, like King Saul, more than
twice in his life ; and, as his soldiers, more than once. 2
One might then pronounce the words of God while
understanding them, or without understanding them,
often even without having heen previously apprized, and
sometimes even without having wished it.
When Daniel had traced his last pages, he did not
understand, he himself tells us, what the Spirit had
made him write. 3 When Caiaphas uttered prophetic
words, " he spoke not of himself; " he had the will, hut
he had neither the consciousness nor the comprehension
of what God caused him to pronounce. 4 When Balaam
went up three times to the top of a hill to curse Israel,
and when, three times, words of benediction proceeded
from his lips, as it were in spite of himself, because
" the Lord had met him and put a word into his
mouth," 6 he had the consciousness of what he did, but
neither fully comprehended, nor fully willed it. When
Saul's armed followers went in search of David to
Ramah, and when the Spirit of the Lord was upon
them, so that they also prophesied; and when Saul,
three successive times, sent others of them, who also
three successive times prophesied ; and when the pro-
fane Saul went himself likewise to the great well in
Sechu, and when God (to illustrate his power, and to
manifest more clearly to us what it is to be a prophet,
and what his word is) had made his Spirit to come on
that unbelieving man also; when he went on and pro-
phesied ; when the word of the Lord was in that ordi-
narily profane mouth, and he prophesied before Samuel
all that day and all that night, " what was it that hap-
pened to the son of Kish ? Was Saul also among the
prophets ? " Yes, and Saul had the consciousness of his
condition, and of the part he acted as a prophet ; but of
1 Acts ii. 4. * 1 Sam. six. 20, 21. a Dan. xii. 8, 9.
* John xi. 51. 5 Numb, xxiii. 16. e 1 Sain. xix. 23, 24.
CONSCIOUS BUT NOT WILLING PROPHETS. 28fi
this he had neither the full will, nor the anticipation, nor
probably the full comprehension. When the old prophet
had seated himself amicably at table with the man of
God, whom he had seduced from his road by an unbe-
lieving and carnal kindness, and when, all of a sudden,
under an impulse from on high, menacing words pro-
ceeded in a loud voice from his mouth against his im-
prudent and guilty guest, he prophesied with the
consciousness of what he did, but he prophesied without,
having the wish to do so. What do I say ? Did not
God make his voice be heard in the empty air, in the
presence of Moses and of all the people, on Mount Sinai ?
Did he not cause it to be heard by the couch of a
child in the tabernacle at Shiloh ? To the ears of the
three apostles, and of the two saints who had risen
again from Hades, on Mount Tabor? To John the
Baptist, and to all the people, on the banks of the
Jordan ?
Be it well understood, then, it is the holy letters (ra.
hga, yga/i/tara, 2 Tim. iii. 15); it is all that is written,
that is to say, the phrases and the words, that are divinely
inspired, that are diovvtvaroi. The question, then, is
about the words, and not about the men who have
written. As to the latter, that concerns you little.
The Spirit was able more or less to associate their indi-
viduality, their conscience, their recollections, their
affections, with what he caused them to write, and you
are nowise obliged to know how far this was the case ;
but that which it behoves you to know is (as St Peter
has said), "that NO WRITTEN PROPHECY came by 'the
will of man, but that it was as moved by the Holy Ghost,
holy men of God spake ; " and just as at Belshazzar's
feast people troubled themselves little about knowing
what was passing in the fingers of that terrible hand
which came forth from the wall over against the candle-
stick, while, on the contrary, all the thoughts of the
guests were turned to the words that were traced on the
plaster of the wall, " Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin,"
because they knew well that these words were from
286 THE HISTORICAL BOOKS INSPIRED.
God ; so likewise it concerns you little, in point of faith,
to penetrate into what passed in the thoughts of Mark,
the thoughts of John, the thoughts of Luke, the
thoughts of Matthew, during the time that they were
writing the roll of the Gospels. It behoves you rather
to direct your entire attention towards the words which
they have written, because you know that these words
are from God. Be the prophet holy like Moses, wise
like Daniel, an enemy of God like Caiaphas, ignorant
of the language in which he speaks like the prophets at
Corinth, impure like Balaam what do I say? insen-
sible, like the hand that wrote on the wall in the palace
at Babylon ; without form, without body, without soul,
like the empty air in which was heard the voice of God
(on Sinai, on the banks of Jordan, on Mount Tabor . . .),
it is of little consequence, once more (unless it be where
their personality itself should be found so interested as
to make an essential part of their revelation.) Thy
thoughts, my God, thy thoughts and thy words, these
are what concern me !
SECTION II.
SHOULD WE EXCEPT FROM INSPIRATION THE HISTORICAL BOOKS ?
" One will admit," we are told, " that the inspiration
of the Scriptures might have been extended to the choice
of expressions, wherever this miraculous operation was
necessary : in the laying down of doctrines, for exam-
ple, in announcing the history of a past more ancient
than the birth of the mountains, or in unveiling a
future which God only can know. But would you
proceed to maintain that men who lived at the time of
the events they relate, had any need of the Holy Ghost
in order to tell us facts of which they themselves were
either agents or witnesses, or which they had heard
related by others ; the humble marriage of Ruth in the
small town of Bethlehem, for example, or the emotions
THEIR INSPIRATION LEAST TO BK DOUBTED. 287
felt by Esther in the palace of Shusan, or the nomen-
clatures of the kings of Israel and Judah, their reigns,
their lives, their deaths, their genealogies ? Luke, -who,
from Troas, accompanied the apostle to Jerusalem, to
Cesarea, to the isle of Malta, and as far as Rome, had
he not enough of recollections of what had passed in
order to tell us how Paul had been laid hold of under
the porches of the temple ; how his nephew revealed
to him, in the castle, the conspiracy of the forty Jews;
how the centurion took the young man to the chief
captain, and how the chief captain took him by the
hand, and went with him aside privately, and asked of
him all that he knew? Did he then absolutely require
for facts so simple and so well-known, a continual
intervention of power from on high ? " Some do
not think so, and maintain, on the contrary, that it is
neither necessary nor rational to believe that all the
historical chapters of the two Testaments are divinely
inspired.
To such objections our first answer will always be
very simple. "All Scripture," we say, " is divinely
inspired." Thou hast known the holy letters, O Timo-
thy : well then, " all the holy letters, all the Scrip-
tures are given by the breath of God." We have
not heard the Holy Ghost make an exception any-
where to these declarations; accordingly, neither in
man, nor in angel, do we acknowledge any right to
hazard any.
But we will say more. Were it allowable to place
one book of God before another if we must distin-
guish in the firmament of the Scriptures the more
glorious constellations and stars of the first magnitude,
we should certainly give the preference to the historical
books In fact :
1. It is to the historical books that the most striking
and most respectful TESTIMONIES are rendered by the
prophets in the Old Testament, and by the apostles in
the New. What is there more holy in the Old than
the Pentateuch ? what is there greater in the New than
26
288 TESTIMONIES TO THE HISTORICAL BOOKS.
the four Gospels? Is it not solely of the historical
books of the Bible that it is written : " The law of the
Lord is perfect ; his testimonies are wonderful ; they
are sure ; they make wise the simple ; they are pure ;
they are more to be desired than gold ; the words of
the Lord are pure words ; they are like silver seven
times refined. Blessed is the man who meditates on
his law day and night." 1
2. Besides, mark with what respect our LORD HIM-
SELF QUOTES THEM, and how in doing so he takes a
pleasure in pointing to the smallest details in the divine
decrees, and sometimes to the use of a single word.
3. The histories in the Bible have not been given
us solely for the transmission to future ages of the
memorials of past events: they are presented to the
Church of all ages, for the purpose of making her
know by facts THE CHARACTER OF HER GOD ; they are
there as a mirror of providence and grace ; they are
destined to reveal to us God's thoughts, God's designs,
the invisible things of God, his heaven, his glory, his
angels, and those mysteries which the angels desire to
look into. 3 For all this the most entire inspiration is
requisite.
4. Remark further, that the historical Scriptures are
given to us for the purpose of revealing to us THE DEEP
THINGS OF MAN. It has been said of the Word of God,
" that it pierces like a sword, to the division of the soul
and spirit ; that all is naked and open to it, and that
it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the
heart." This holds true of the written "Word as well as
of the personal Word of God, for the one is the lan-
guage of the other ; but it is especially true of the his-
torical word. Do you not see that that word, in its
narratives, is a two-edged sword, and that it tries men's
consciences ? And in like manner as it describes to you
what took place on o'ir globe in the days of chaos, when
the Spirit of God moved on the face of the abyss, it
i Pa. xir. 7-10; i. J, 2. 1 Pet. i. 12.
MEN COULD NOT DESCRIBE THE ANGELS. 289
equally tells you of what takes place in the ahyss of the
human heart, the mysteries of the invisible world, the
secret motives, the hidden faults, and many a thought
which, but for it, would only have been known in the
great day when the Lord will bring to light things hid
in darkness, and will make manifest the purposes of
men's hearts. Is it thus, then, that men write history ?
5. The historical Scriptures behoved on another ac-
count to have the most entire inspiration, namely, in
order that they might relate to us without any error
the mysterious interventions of the ANGELS in this
world's affairs, in those of the Church, and in those of
Heaven. Is there a subject more delicate, more novel,
more difficult ? Do not those ardent and pure, hum-
ble and sublime creatures, whose existence we know of
only from the Bible, differ as much from man as the
heavens differ from the earth ? Was any thing similar
to the angels ever conceived by the imaginations of the
peoples, by their poets, or by their sages ? No, they
never even show the slightest approach to it. One will
perceive, then, how impossible it was, without a con-
stant operation on the part of God, that the biblical
narratives, in treating of such a subject, should not
have constantly borne the all too human impression of
our narrow conceptions ; and .that the sacred writers
should not have often let slip from their pen imprudent
touches, investing the angels by turns with attributes
too divine, or affections too human. All nations have
taken a fancy for figuring to themselves invisible beings,
as the inhabitants of the celestial regions, whom they
have tricked out with all those marks of superiority
that charm the heart of man. But how have all their
conceptions been creeping, childish^ and vulgar, com-
. pared with what the angels are! How have all those
creations of our fancy been comparatively eaithly, pas
sionate, selfish, impure, and often odious ! See the
gods, the demigods, and the whole Olympus of the
ancients ; see the fairies, the genii, and the sylphs of
the moderns : see even farther, the angels of Scripture
290 ONENESS OF THE ANGELIC CHARACTER.
speedily disfigured in the books of man, in the Apoc-
rypha of Enoch, for example, in several of the Fathers,
in the legends of Rome, and even in the more recent
creations of several of the French poets. Winged pas-
sions, devout puerilities, sacrilegious idols, immortal
egotisms, celestial wickednesses, deified impurities !
But study the angels of Scripture; there not only is
every thing great, holy, and worthy of God ; not only
is that character at once ardent and sublime, compas-
sionate and majestic, constantly recalled to us by their
names, their attributes, their employments, their dwell-
ings, their hymns, their contemplations of the depths of
redemption, and the ineffable joys of their love; but
that which above all ought to strike us, is the perfect
harmony of all this as a whole ; it is that all these fea-
tures accord together; it is that all these attributes cor-
respond to each other, and maintain themselves in the
justest proportions.
In a word, this whole doctrine, sustained from one
end to the other of the Scriptures, throughout a course
of fifteen hundred years, presents to us a unity which
of itself alone will be found to attest the inimitable
reality of its object, but which bears the most striking
testimony to their entire inspiration.
While all the mythologies speak to us of the inha-
bitants of the moon and of the planets, the Bible says
not a word of them : it says nothing to us about the
second heaven ; but it pictures to us, with no less ful-
ness than precision, the sublime inhabitants of the third
heaven, or of the heaven of heavens. This subject recurs
constantly there, and under the most varied forms.
Descriptions of the angels are often found in the
Bible ; descriptions unembarrassed, full of details, inde-
pendent of each other. They are exhibited to us in all
situations in heaven and on earth, before God and with
men, ministers employed in executing acts of mercy
and sometimes also acts of vengeance, bathed in the
radiance of the divine glory, standing before God ami
worshipping him night and day ; but also engaged in
BEAUTY OP THE ANGELIC CHARACTER. 291
ministering to the humblest believers, helping them in
their distresses, in their travels, in their imprisonments,
on their deathbeds; and finally coming, at the last day,
on the clouds of heaven, with the Son of man, to re-
move all the wicked from his kingdom, 'and to gather
in his elect from the four winds.
And what were the historians of the angels ? Let us
not forget this : some were shepherds ; others were
kings, or soldiers, or priests, or fishermen, or tax-ga-
therers; some writing in the days of Hercules, of Jason
and the Argonauts, three hundred years before the war
of Troy; others in the age of Seneca, of Tacitus, and of
Juvenal. And yet we see that the relater has the same
beings throughout before his eyes. Unlike men, they
are always like themselves. We are defiled, they are
perfect; we are selfish, they glow with love; we are
haughty, they are gentle and meek. We are vain and
proud in a body which will be gnawed by the worms,
they are humble in their glory and immortality. We
would sometimes fain worship them ; " See thou do it
not," they say to us, " I am but thy fellow-servant ! " *
We are disquieted with lusts, they are fervent in spirit,
they neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they
cannot die. 2 We are hard-hearted, they are compas-
sionate ; we leave the poor Lazarus to groan as he lies
famished at our gate and our dogs lick his sores, but
they come to take him when he is dead, and convey
him away to Abraham's bosom ; s they utter shouts of
joy at the conversion of a sinner ; and yet, Jesus said,
" the angel of one of these little ones continually be-
holds in the heavens the face of my Father." 4 Such
is the angel of the whole of the Scriptures.
Now, let each ask himself, how, without a constant
inspiration of all the historical books, it could have
happened, that over a course of so many ages, not one
of the authors who had occasion to bring such beings
before us, has let slip, with regard to them, either words
1 Apoc. xxii. 9. a Luke xx. 36'.
a Luke xvi. 22. * Matfc. xviii. 10,
292 SCRIPTURE HISTORY PROPHETICAL.
fraught with excessive respect, after the manner of the
liturgies of Rome, or other words hearing too much of
the impress of our humanity, after the manner of many
of the Fathers ? and, how not a single discordant trait
falling from their pen, spoils the perfect harmony of
that inimitable character, or derogates from the ever
amiahle dignity of that sublime creation ?
Once more, this unity, this purity, this perfection,
comes not from man : it is from God ! and we ought
to own that here, as well as elsewhere, it was necessary
that the Holy Ghost should himself superintend all
that is written by his historians, and make himself the
guarantee of their slightest expressions.
6. But this is not all. See farther how, even with-
out the knowledge of the authors, the histories in the
Bible are full of the future. Even in relating the
events of the past, " they are types," says Paul, " for us
upon whom the ends of the world are come." 1 They
relate, it is true, national scenes or domestic scenes ;
but while they relate, Jesus Christ is incessantly and
prophetically portrayed under all his aspects, and in
all his characters. See the history of Adam, of Noah,
of Abraham, of Isaac, of Joseph, of Moses, of the sa-
crificial lamb, of the deliverance from Egypt, of the
pillar of fire, of the manna, of the rock which was
Christ (1 Cor. x. 4), of the goat Azazel, of all the sa-
crifices, of Joshua, of David, of Solomon, of Jonah, of
Zorobabel. One would need to write a commentary on
the whole history, in order to do justice to this truth.
Read over, in order that you may appreciate it, the
pages of Paul on Agar, on Sarah, on Aaron, on Mel-
chisedec.
If, then, one would reflect upon this, he would soon
acknowledge, with wonder, the constant forth-putting
of the power of inspiration in all parts of these Scrip-
tures ; and one would feel assured, that if there be
pages in the Bible that have need to be inspired in
i ) Cor. x. 6, 11.
SPECIAL END OF SCRIPTURE HISTORY. 293
every line and in every word, these are the historical
books : they preach, they reveal, they set forth doctrine,
they legislate, they prophesy.
Compare them not, therefore, with other histories :
they have quite another scope.
They behoved to have this full inspiration, in order
to recite, without any error, facts inaccessible to man's
knowledge, the creation of the universe, the extrication
of chaos, the birth of light, the rise of the mountains,
the intervention of angels, God's secret counsels, the
thoughts of man's heart and his secret faults ; but they
specially behoved to have it in order that they might pre-
figure Christ by a thousand types unperceived by the
writer himself, and thus exhibit even in their naratives
of the past, the character of the Messiah, his sufferings,
his death, and the glories that were to follow. It was
necessary for them, in order that they might speak in a
suitable manner of those events even that were known to
them, to pass some over in silence, to relate others, to
characterize them, to judge them, and thus to show in
them the thought of God ; but it was above all neces-
sary for enabling them to describe in the just measure
prescribed by that thought of God, and by the needs of
the future Church, the scenes, whether national or do-
mestic, which behoved to carry along with them the
types of the work of redemption, to prefigure the last
times, and to take in a vast sweep of thousands of years
posterior to them. They required it for the purpose of de-
termining the measure of what they might confide to their
readers, and what they should withhold, for the discreet
use of their expressions, and for that admirable restraint
upon themselves which they have uniformly preserved.
7. We could wish we had time to speak here of their
dramatic power (if such an expression may be per-
mitted), that divine and indefinable charm, that mys-
terious and ever-recurring attraction, which we find
attached to all their narratives, which captivates man's
soul under all climates, which makes us find in them,
throughout all our lives, as in the scenes of nature, an
294 ATTRACTIVENESS OF TUB SCRIPTURES.
ever fresh charm ; and after being delighted and moved
by these incomparable narratives in our early childhood,
affects our tender feelings even in hoary age. Certainly,
there must needs be something superhuman in the very
humanity of these forms, so familiar and so simple.
Men are incapable of telling a story thus. Who shall
tell us the secret of this attractiveness ? In what does
it consist ? We should find it not easy to say, perhaps :
it seems to lie in an ineffable mixture of simplicity and
depth, of the natural and the unlocked for, of local
colouring and spirituality ; it further lies in this, that
the narratives are marked by rapidity and simplicity,
that they are at once minute in detail and- concise ; it
lies, finally, in the harmony and the truth of the senti-
ments ; it presents man, it presents nature, in their in-
most reality. In a word, you cannot fail to feel (even
without being able to. account for it) that He who speaks
in this book, has immediately before him all the most
hidden strings of man's heart, so as to be able to touch
them at will, with a hand light or powerful, in the pre-
cise measure that his Spirit has proposed to itself. Read
over the scenes in which Ruth and Boaz appear on the
plains of Bethlehem, those where Abraham and Isaac
meet on mount Moriah, those of David and Jonathan,
those of Elijah and Elisha, those of Naaman the
Syrian, of the widow of Zarephath, or of the Shuna-
rnite, and, above all, those of the life and death of the
Son of man ; and, after that, search every where else in
the books of men, and see if you can find any thing
similar. Read, if you like, the four Vedahs, and the
voluminous collection of Pauthier, the sacred books of
the East, Confucius, Man on, Mahomet; 1 and see if there
are to be met with there eight lines that can be com-
pared to these incomparable narratives of Scripture.
But that we dreaded enlarging too far, we could have
1 Lea Livres sacr&s de ^Orient, comprenant le ChouJdng, ou I/ivre
par excellence le Sse Ckoit, ou les Quatre livres moraux de Confuciui
et de ses disciples; lea Lois de Manon, premier legislateur de PInde;
le Koran de Mahomet, par Pauthier, Paris 1840.
DUPLESSIS MOBNAY ON THE SCRIPTURES. 295
wished to make some comparisons here, and to take in
turns the relations of the same facts in the Old Testa-
ment and in the Koran, in the New Testament and in
the spurious Gospels, in the patriarchal scenes of Ge-
nesis, and in what has been made of them by men
every time they have related them. Read over, for
instance, in Moses, the life of Joseph, his infancy, his
misfortunes, his temptations, and as far as that inimi-
table scene in which Jacob's eleven sons appear before
their brother ; as far as that " God lie gracious unto tkee,
my son 1" (xliii. 29), and as far as " I am Joseph (-os
siov) !" which at no time of life can one peruse without
fresh emotion ; and, then, go and take up that history
again in Mahomet; go read his xii. chapter, intitled
Joseph^ written at Mecca in a hundred and eleven
verses, and beginning with these words : " We have
made this book come down from heaven in the Arabic
tongue, in order that people may understand it, and
we proceed to relate the most beautiful story that we
have revealed to thee in this Koran."
" Let, then," says the celebrated Duplessis Mornay, 1
" the hardest hearts, and the most squeamish palates in
the world, come and read over these histories of our
Bible ; . . . . they will feel their whole bodies thrill,
their hearts move, and a tenderness of affection come
over them in a moment, more than had all the orators
of Greece and Rome preached to them the same matters
for whole days. Let them go and read the same his-
tories in Elavius Josephus, to whom the emperor Titus
ordered a statue to be erected on account of the ele-
gance of his history, he will leave them colder and less
moved than he found them. "What, then, if this Scrip-
ture has in its humility more elevation, in its simplicity
more depth, in its absence of all effort more charms, in
its grossness more vigour and point, than we know
to find any where else of these qualities ?"
Oh no ! we must say of the historical Scriptures.
i De la Verite de la Religion Chretienne, pp. 613, 614.
27
296 DIVINE BREVITY OF THE SCRIPTURES.
even in. this respect, that never have men related events
as they have done, neither before nor after.
8. People have not perhaps sufficiently remarked,
they have not sufficiently admired their divine brevity.
If you would, in this respect, appreciate the Scriptures,
compare them with the biographies that men have
written, or with the systems of doctrine which they have
given, when left to do so. See, for example, the
modern Church of the Jews, and see that of the Latins.
While the former has joined to the Scripture its two
Talmuds, by attributing to them the same authority, one
of which (that of Jerusalem) forms a large folio volume ;
and the other (that of Babylon), which is most followed,
and which must be studied by all its doctors, is a work
of twelve folio volumes 1 and while the Roman Church
in its Council of Trent declares, " that it receives, with
the same affection and reverence as the Holy Scripture,
its traditions respecting faith and morals ;" that is to
say, the vast repertory of its synodal acts, of its decretals,
of its bulls, of its canons, and of the writings of the holy
fathers ; 2 behold what the Spirit hath done in the Bible,
and there admire the celestial prudence of its inimitable
brevity.
"Who among us could have been, for three years and
a half, the constant witness, the passionately attached
friend, of a man like Jesus Christ, and could have been
able to write in sixteen or seventeen short chapters, or
in eight hundred lines, the history of the whole of that
life of his birth, of his ministry, of his miracles, of his
preachings, of his sufferings, of his death, of his resur-
rection, and of his ascension into the heavens ? Who
among us would have found it possible to avoid saying
a word of the first thirty years of such a life ? Who
among us could have related so many acts of kindness
' La derniere edition d' Amsterdam. Maimonides has made a
learned extract from it in his Yad Hachazakah. See Prideau, His-
toire (U* JuifSy Amsterdam, vol. ii. p. 130.
a Concile de Trent, sess. 4, 1st and 2d decrees, published 28th
Apr. 1546. Bpllarmin. de Verbo Dei, lib. iv. cap. 3, 5, 6. Cctow,
lib. ii. cap. 24. 34, 35. Baile Traite i. du Perron centre Tilenus.
DIVINE RESERVE OF THE SCRIPTURES. 297
without an exclamation ; so many miracles without re-
flections on them ; so many sublime thoughts without
any emphasis; so many sufferings without complaint;
so many acts of injustice without bitterness ; so many
sinless infirmities in their Master, and so many sinful
infirmities in his disciples, without any suppression ; so
much ingratitude in their cowardly abandonment of
him ; so many instances of resistance, so much igno-
rance, so much hardness of heart, without the slightest
excuse or comment? Is it thus that man relates a
history? Who among us, further, could have known
how to distinguish what behoved to be said cursorily
from what required to be told in detail ? Who among
us, for example, could have thought that the whole
creation of the world behoved to be related in a chapter
of thirty-one verses ; then the probation, the fall, anc
the condemnation of our race, in another chapter of
twenty-four verses ; while he consecrated so very manj
chapters and pages to the construction of the tabernacle
and of its utensils, because these presented to future
ages a continual and typical view of Jesus Christ and
of his redemption ? Who among us, for the same rea-
son, would have devoted the fifth part of the book of
Genesis to relating the history of one alone of the twelve
children of Jacob, while two chapters only had seemed to
suffice for seventeen hundred years of the history of the
human race, from Adam's fall to the deluge ? Who
among us would have thought, like Matthew, of men-
tioning only four women (and such women !) in the
forty- two generations of the ancestors of Jesus Christ,
and of their recording there the names of the incestuous
Tamar, the impure Rahab, Ruth the Moabitess, and the
adulterous spouse of Uriah, without tempering the
scandal by a single reflection ? Who among us would
have consecrated but a single verse to the conversion of
a Roman proconsul (Acts xiii. 12)? Who among us,
after having shared, during ten years, in the labours
of Paul, his perils, his imprisonments, his preachings,
and his prophetical gifts, could have related twenty-two
298 DIVINE BREVITY OF THE ACTS
years of such a life without saying a word about him-
self, and without making known, except by the mere
change of the personal pronoun (at chap. xvi. ver. 10),
that from Troas to Jerusalem and Cesarea, and from
Jerusalem and Cesarea to Malta and thence to Rome,
he had been his suffering, faithful, indefatigable com-
panion ? It is necessary, in order to our being
aware of this, that it should be Paul himself who,
during his last imprisonment, should write to Timothy:
" At my first answer no man stood with me, but all
men forsook me ; Luke only is with me." (2 Tim.
iv. 16, 11; Philem. 24; Coloss. iv. 14.) Holy and hea-
venly reserve, humble and noble silence, such as the
Holy Ghost alone could have taught !
Where will you find, among all uninspired narrators,
a man who could have written, like Luke, the Acts
of the Apostles ? Who could have contrived to relate
within thirty pages the church history of the thirty
noblest years of Christianity from the ascension of the
Son of man. above the clouds of heaven, to the impri-
sonment of St Paul in the capital of the Roman world ?
Incomparable history ! See, at once, how short it is,
and yet how full! What do we not find in it? Ad-
dresses delivered to the Jews, to the Greeks, before the
tribunals, before the Areopagus, and before the Sanhe-
drim, in places of public resort and before a proconsul,
in synagogues and before kings ; admirable descriptions
of the primitive Church; miraculous and dramatic
scenes witnessed in the midst of her ; the interventions
of angels, to deliver, to warn, or to punish ; controver-
sies and divisions in Christian congregations ; new in-
stitutions in the Church ; the history of a first council
and its synodic epistle; commentaries on the Scripture;
accounts of heresy; judgments from God, solemn and
terrible; appearances of the Lord in the highway, in
the temple, and in prison ; details of conversions, often
miraculous and singularly varied that of Eneas, that
of the eunuch, that of Cornelius the centurion, that of
the Roman jailer, that of the proconsul, that of Lydia.
OP THE APOSTLES. 29,9
that of Apollos, that of a numerous hody at Jerusalem
not to mention such as were only commenced, as in
the emotion felt by 'king Agrippa, in the troubled state
of Felix's mind, in the kind acts of the centurion
Julius; missionary excursions; different solutions of
sundry cases of conscience; permanent divisions with
respect to external matters among different classes of
Christians; mutual prejudices; disputes among the
brethren and among the apostles; warm expressions,
explanations, and yet triumphs of the spirit of charity
over these obstacles ; communications from one mili-
tary officer to another, from one proconsul to another ;
resurrections from the dead ; revelations made to the
Church, in order to hasten the calling of the Gentiles ;
collections for the poor by one Church for another;
prophecies; national scenes; punishments consummated
or prepared; appearances before Jewish tribunals or
Koman municipalities, before governors and kings ;
meetings of Christians from house to house; their emo-
tions, their prayers, their charity, their doubts ; a per-
secuting king struck by an angel and eaten by worms,
just as when, in order to gratify the populace, he had
actually slain one apostle and was meditating the death
of another; persecutions under every form by syna-
gogues, by princes, by municipalities, by the Jews, or
by popular tumults ; deliverances experienced by men
of God, through the instrumentality sometimes of a
child, sometimes of an angel, sometimes of a Roman
tribune or ship-captain, of pagan magistrates or idola-
trous soldiers; storms and shipwrecks described with a
nautical exactness of detail which, as we ourselves have
witnessed, continues to charm the sailors of our own day;
and all this in thirty pages, or twenty-eight short chap-
ters. Admirable brevity ! "Was God's Holy Spirit not
necessary for this conciseness, for this choice of details,
for this manner at once pious, varied, brief, richly sig-
nificative, so sparing in the employment of words, and
yet teaching so many things? Fulness, conciseness,
clearness, unction, simplicity, elevation, practical rich-
300 CHOICE OF DETAILS.
ness; such is the book of Church history that was
needed for God's people. True ; but, once, more, it is
not thus that men compose histories.
Could you find upon the earth a man capable of re-
lating the murder of his mother with the calmness, the
moderation, the sobriety, the apparent impassibility of
that quadruple narrative of the evangelists, telling of
the crucifixion of Jesus, of that Jesus whom they loved
more than one loves his mother, more than one loves
his life? of that Jesus whom they had seen on his
knees in Gethsemane; then betrayed, forsaken, dragged
Avith his hands bound to Jerusalem, and finally nailed
naked to a cross, while the sun hid his light, and the
earth quaked and opened, and when He who had
raised the dead to life again, was himself reduced to
the state of the dead ! Was not God's Spirit then re-
quired at every line, at every word of such a narrative,
in order to make a suitable choice of details, amid an
age and a world of recollections ?
9. There was a necessity, moreover, for an entire
guidance by the Holy Ghost, in order to the main-
tenance of that prophetical reserve which the sacred
historians were enabled in so many respects to observe ;
and of that altogether divine prudence, which reveals
itself not only in what they teach, but also in what
they withhold ; not only in the terms which they em-
ploy, but also in those they avoid.
And here, to enable one to form some estimate of this,
observe them, for example, when they speak of the
mother of Jesus. What divine foresight, and what
prophetical wisdom, both in their narratives and in their
expressions ! How readily might they have been led,
in their ardent adoration of the Son, to express them-
selves, when speaking of the mother, in terms of too
much respect ! Would not a single word, suffered to
escape from the want of circumspection so natural to
their first emotions, have for ever sanctioned the idola-
tries of future ages towards Mary, and the crime of the
worship which is paid to her ? But they have never
DIVINE FORESIGHT. 301
allowed themselves to drop any such word. Had they
so much as merely called her the mother of God ? No,
not even that ; although he was in their eyes Emmanuel,
the God-Man, the "Word which was in the beginning,
which was with God, which was God, and which was
made flesh. Listen to them. What do we find them say of
her after the death and the resurrection of their Saviour?
One single sentence, after which they say not a word
more about her. " These all continued with one accord
in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary
the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." (Actsi. 14.)
(" Hi omnes erant perseverantes unanimiter in oratione
cum mulieribus, et Marid et matreJesu etfratribus ejus."')
Here they name her neither first nor last ; here she ap-
pears, as the mother of Jesus, among the brethren of
Jesus, and the women of Galilee. And what do we
find them say of her before the Lord's death ? Note
this carefully. Ah, it is not thus that men relate events !
Of all that Jesus Christ may have said to his mother
after the opening of his mission, they have selected but
three sayings to be handed down to us. The first is as
follows : " Woman (when she interfered with his com-
mencing ministry, and asked of him a miracle), woman
(woman !) what have I to do with thee ? " * Then,
when a woman from among the people, in the warmth
of her enthusiasm, cried out from amid the crowd :
" Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps
which thou hast sucked ! " " Yea, rather, blessed are
they that hear the word of God and keep it !" 2 Such
is the second. Hear now the third : His mother and
his brethren were shaken in their faith, and some of them
had been heard to say, " He is beside himself (dicebant
enim, quoniam in furorem versus est); and one said
unto him, ' Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand
without desiring to speak with thee.' " " Who is my
mother ? " was his reply ; and stretching forth his hand
towards his disciples he said : " Behold my mother . .
i John ii. 4. 2 Luke xi. 27. 28.
302 DIVINE WISDOM OF THE SCRIPTURES.
every woman that shall do the will of my Father which
is in heaven, the same is my mother.'' "Ecce mater
mea" And when, in his last agony, he beholds her
from the cross, he no longer calls her by the name of
mother ; but he bequeaths her to the disciple whom he
loved, saying, " "Woman, behold thy son ; John, behold
thy mother ;" and from that hour that disciple took her
to his own home, not to worship her but to protect her,
as a weak and suffering creature whose soul had been
pierced through with a sword.
Is it thus, then, we again ask, that men relate events,
and must not the prophetic Spirit alone have been the
relater of these facts ?
We could wish to give other examples : they at this
moment crowd upon our mind, and it costs us a sacrifice
to omit mentioning them ; for the more narrowly we
study these historical books, the more does the prophe-
tical wisdom of God's Spirit who dictated them reveal
itself there in details, at first sight far from obvious.
We could wish to point out among others the altogether
prophetic wisdom with which the Holy Spirit often, on
coming to relate some one important fact more than
once, is careful to vary his expressions, in order to pre-
vent the false interpretations that might be put upon it,
and to condemn beforehand the errors which were in a
distant future to be attached to it. We would cite, for
example, the manner, so remarkable and so unexpected,
in which the tenth law of the Decalogue is repeated iu
Deuteronomy, 1 with a remarkable transposition of its
first terms ; the Holy Ghost thus desiring to confound
prophetically the artifice whereby the doctors of Rome
were to endeavour, fifteen centuries afterwards, to di-
vide that commandment into two, in order to veil over
the criminal omission they have dared to make of the
second : " And thou shalt not make unto thyself any
graven image, nor any likeness . . . thou shalt not bow
down to them, nor serve them.'' We could wish to
i Deut. v. 21; Exod. xx. 17.
THE DECALOGUE AND THE SUPPER. 303
point farther to the variety of expression with which the
Holy Ghost has related to us the divine institution of
the holy Suppei', and has paraphrased it several times,
for the purpose of enabling us hetter to comprehend what
was the meaning of Jesus Christ, and to condemn before-
hand the carnal sense which people were to give to these
words : " THIS is MY BLOOD ; this CUP is the New
TESTAMENT in my blood," he also said : " This cup is
the COMMUNICATION of the blood of the New Testament."
We would desire to call attention to the prophetic
wisdom with which the Holy Ghost, in order to con-
found those who in the sequel were to allege that Judas
did not participate in the last Supper, and that he went
out before, or did not come in till after it, has taken
care to let us know, by Mark and Matthew, 1 that Jesus
gave notice of the treachery of Judas before the com-
munion, Judas being present; and by Luke, that he
gave notice of it also afterwards, Judas being present. 2
We could wish to show in the case of all the New Tes-
tament writers, the constant sobriety of their words,
when the subject in hand bears on the relations of
pastors to the churches ; and that admirable prudence
with which they have always abstained from applying,
even in a single instance, to the ministers of the Chris-
tian Church, the name sacerdotes, or sacrificers ; reserv-
ing to them that title of elders or presbyters which
was given to laymen in Israel, and distinguishing them
always from the sacerdotal race (which represented
Jesus Christ, and which behoved to cease when the sole
true priest had appeared). We could wish to point
out, also, that prudence with which never do we find a
soul conducted to any other pastor, any other director
(?ca07]yjr3js) 8 than Jesus Christ, and with which, in
recommending deference towards spiritual guides, the
Scripture is careful to name them always in the plural,
in order that none might ever have its authority to ap-
peal to in support of that idea, so natural to pastors and
i Matt. xxvi. 21-25; Mark xiv. 18-20. a Luke xxii. 19-23,
Matt, xxiii. 8-10.
304 JESUS CHRIST OUR ONLY DIRECTOR.
to the members of flocks, that every soul ought to have
its pastor among men. " Call no man on earth your
father ; and do not make yourself be called DIRECTOR,
for Christ alone is your director." What precaution,
what reserve in the narratives, in order that too much
might never be attributed to man, and to recount " the
great things that God did by means of the apostles," 1 in
such a manner that self in all might be abased, that all
glory might redound to God, and that all the Lord's
servants may learn to say with the last prophet of the
Old Testament and the first prophet of the New, " He
must increase, and I must decrease."
We repeat it, one must do violence to his own feel-
ings, with the volume of the Bible before him, not to
cite more such examples from it.
From all these traits taken together, it behoves us
then to conclude, that, though the whole Scripture is
divinely inspired, the historical books, more than all the
rest, make' this divine intervention most manifest ; they
show it to be most indispensable ; they attest, that for
such pages it was necessary that the invisible and
almighty hand of the Holy Ghost should be placed over
that of the sacred writer, and guide it from the first line
to the last. Here something more was necessary
than learned men, than saints, than enlightened
minds, than angels or archangels here God was ne-
cessary.
We will say, then, with Origen, that the sacred
volumes breathe the plenitude of the Spirit, and that
there is nothing either in Prophets, or in Law, or in Gos-
pel, or in Apostle, which does not come down from the
fulness of the majesty of God ; 2 and with St Ambrose, 3
1 Acts xiv. 27; 1 Cor. iii. 6.
s Homilia ii. in Jerem., cap. 1.
3 " Utrumque' poculum bibe Veteris et Novi Testament!, quia ex
utroqne Christum bibia. Bibe Christum, ut bibas sanguinem quo
redemptus es : bibe Christum, ut bibas sermones ejus. Bibitur
Scriptura sacra, et devoratur Scriptura divina, cum in venas mentis
ac vires animi succus verbi descendit eterni." (Ambrosius in Psalm
i. Enarratio.
OPINIONS OF ST AMBROSE AND 8T AUGUSTINE. 305
" drink both the cup of the Old and that of the New
Testament, for, in both, it is Christ that thou drinkest.
Drink Jesus Christ, that thou mayest drink the blood by
wmch thou hast been redeemed. Drink Jesus Christ,
in order that thou mayest drink in all his sayings. We
drink holy Scripture, we devour holy Scripture, when
the juice of the everlasting Word descends into the veins
of our mind, and penetrates the energies of our soul."
And with Augustine r 1 "Wonderful are the depths of
thine oracles ! Behold how their surface charms little
ones ; but wonderful depth, O my God, what wonderful
depth ! One shudders at the contemplation of it a
thrill of reverence and trembling of love ! "
But, how now (it has been sometimes said further),
must we believe that the letter of the Pagan Lysias, 2 or
the harangue of the Jew Gamaliel, 8 or the discourses oi
Job's harsh friends, were all inspired? No, without
doubt. No more than those of Cain, or of Lamech, or
of Rabshakeh, or of Satan. But the sacred writers
were as really guided by God, in order that they might
transmit them to us, as they were to tell us* the song of
Mary in the hill country, or that of the seraphim in the
year that king Uzziah died, or that of the celestial army
at Bethlehem. The Holy Ghost is not always the
author of the words which he reports, but he is always
the historian.
Meanwhile another evasion is made in order to except
a part of the Scriptures from the Theopneustia. If
this is not the most serious objection, it is, at least, one
of those that are most frequently advanced.
1 Miraprofunditas eloquiorum tuorum, quorum ecce ante nos super-
ficies blandiens parvulis; sed mira profunditas, Deus metis, mira
profunditas ! Horror est intendere in earn, horror honoris et tremor
nmorw ! (Confets. lib. xii. cap. 14.)
* Acts xxiii. 25. 3 Acts v. 34. * Luke L 46.
306 APPARENT INSIGNIFICANCE
SECTION III.
WILL THE APPARENT INSIGNIFICANCE OF CERTAIN DETAILS IN THE
BIBLE AUTHORIZE THEIR BEING EXCEPTED FROM INSPIRATION ?
"Was it suited to the dignity of inspiration to accom-
pany the thoughts of the apostle Paul, even into those
vulgar details to which we see him descend in many of
his letters ? Could the Holy Ghost have gone so far as
to dictate to him those ordinary salutations with which
they close ? or those medicinal counsels which he gives
to Timothy with respect to his stomach and his frequent
infirmities ? or those commissions with which he charges
him with respect to his parchments and a certain cloak
which he had left with Carpus at Troas, when he quit-
ted Asia?"
We heg the reader will allow us to heseech him to
ponder well, when, on taking the Bible into his hands,
he does not perceive, from his very first readings, the
tokens of God in such or such a passage of the Word.
Let not those reckless hands proceed to cast a single
verse out of the temple of the Scriptures. They clasp an
eternal book, all the authors of which have said, like
Paul, "And I think that I also have the mind of the
Lord." If then he does not as yet see any thing divine
in such or such a verse, the fault is in himself, not in
the passage. Let him say rather, like Jacob, " Surely
the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not." *
Let us examine more closely the passages alleged.
Paul, from the recess of his prison, asks for the re-
turn of his cloak; he had left it with Carpus at Troas;
he begs Timothy to hasten before winter, and not to for-
get to bring it with him. This domestic detail, so. many
thousand times adduced as an objection to the inspira-
tion of the Scriptures, from the days of the Anomeans.
> Gen. x-xviiL 16.
OP CERTAIN SCRIPTURE DETAILS. 307
spoken of by Jerome, 1 this detail seems to you too
trivial for an apostolical book, or, at least, too insignifi-
cant, and too remote from edification, for the dignity of
inspiration. Unhappy is the man, nevertheless, who
does not perceive its pathetic grandeur !
Jesus Christ also, on the day of his death, spoke of
his garment and his vesture. "Would you have that
passage dismissed from the number of inspired sayings ?
It was after a night of fatigue and anguish. He had
been led through the streets of Jerusalem for seven
hours in succession, by torch-light, from street to street,
from tribunal to tribunal, beaten and buifetted, blind-
folded in mockery, and struck with sticks on the head.
The morrow's sun had not risen when they bound his
hands to lead him further from the sacerdotalpalace to
Pilate's pretorium. There, his flesh torn with stripes,
bathed with blood, then delivered over in order to his
final execution into the hands of ferocious soldiers, he
saw all his clothes taken from him that he might be
arrayed in a purple robe, while people knelt before him,
.and put a reed in his hand, and spit in his face. Then,
before placing the cross on his torn limbs, his garments
were thrown over his wounds, in order to his being
taken to Calvary ; but, when they were about to pro-
ceed to his execution, they were taken from him for
the third time ; and it was then that, spoiled of every
thing, first of his upper garment, then of his very inner
vesture, he was to die on the felon's gibbet, in view of
an immense concourse of people. Was there ever found
under heaven a man who has not found these details
deeply moving, sublime, inimitable? and was there
ever found one who. from the recital of this death-scene,
would think of retrenching, as useless or too common-
place, the account given of those garments which were
parted, and of that vesture on which a lot was cast ?
Has not infidelity itself said, in speaking of it, that
the majesty of the Scriptures astonished it, that their
See Proemium ^n episL ad Pkilem.
308 CASE OF ST PAUL.
simplicity addressed itself to the heart, that the death of
Socrates was that of a sage, but that the death of Jesus
Christ was that of a God? 1 And if divine inspiration
was reserved for a portion only of the holy books
would it not be for these very details ? Would it noi
be for the history of that love which, after having lived
upon the earth more poor than the birds of the air and
the foxes of the field, desired to die poorer still, de-
spoiled of every thing, of his upper and under garments,
fixed to a felon's gibbet, with his arms extended and
nailed to the tree ? Ah ! let your mind be at ease
with respect to the Holy Ghost ! He has not dero-
gated from his dignity ; and very far from having
thought that he descended too far in reporting these
facts to the earth, he hastened to relate them ; and it
was a thousand years beforehand, it was in the age of
the war of Troy, that he sang them to the harp of
David : " They pierced my hands and my feet (he said) ;
they look and stare upon me ; they part my garments
among them, and cast lots upon my vesture I" 2
Well then, this is the same Spirit who has desired
to show to us Paul writing to Timothy and asking
for his cloak. Mark what he says. He, too, was spoiled
of every thing. Even while as yet but a youth, he was
great among men, a favourite of princes, admired by
all : he forsook all for Jesus Christ. For thirty years
and more he has been poor; in labours more abundant
than others, in stripes above measure, in prisons more
frequent; of the Jews five times received he forty
stripes save one; thrice was he beaten with rods; once
was he stoned; thrice he suffered shipwreck;, in jour-
neyings often, in perils of waters, in perils in the city,
in perils in the. wilderness, in perils on the sea; in
watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in cold and
nakedness (we quote his own words.) 3 Mark now
what he says : behold him advanced in years ; he is in
his last prison; he is in Rome; he is waiting for his
1 Rousseau's Emile. s Ps. xxii. 16-18; John xix. 23, 24.
a 2 Cor. xi. 25-27.
THE CLOAK HE LEFT AT TBOAS. 309
sentence of death; he has fought the good fight; he
has finished his course; he has kept the faith; but he
is shivering with cold ; . . . . winter has commenced ;
and he is in want of clothes ! Buried in one of the
dungeons of the Mamertine prisons, he lies under such
a load of opprobrium that even all the Christians of
Rome are ashamed of him, and when first called to
appear before his judges, no man stood by him. The
time was, ten years before, when already a prisoner in
Rome, and loaded with chains, he had at least re-
ceived some money from the Philippians, who, know-
ing his wretched state, had subscribed among them-
selves in their indigence something to be sent as alms
to him there; but now behold him forsaken; nobody
was with him but Luke; all had abandoned him; win-
ter was at hand. He needed a cloak; he had left his
two hundred leagues off, with Carpus at Troas; in the
chilly dungeons of Rome there was nobody to lend
him one : had he not joyfully parted with all for
Jesus? 3 - had he not counted all the world's glories as
dung that he might win Christ ? and does he not will-
ingly endure all things for the elect's sake? 2 We
were ourselves last year in Rome, in a hotel at the
beginning of November, on a rainy day. "With what
a lively feeling, under the chill impressions of the even-
ing, did we represent to ourselves the holy apostle Paul
in the subterranean prisons of the Capitol, dictating the
last of his letters, expressing his regret at the want of
his cloak, and begging Timothy to send it to him before
winter !
Who is there now that would wish to retrench from
the inspired epistles a trait so affecting and so pathetic ?
Does not the Holy Ghost take you as it were into Paul's
prison, there to have instant occular evidence of his af-
fectionate self-renunciation and sublime poverty ; so as
to make us see also, as with our own eyes, what was the
depth of his love, sometime before, when it made him
i Phil. iii. 8. 2 2 Tim. ii. 10.
310 ST PAUL IN PRISON
write in his letter to the Philippians : " I tell you, even
weeping, that there are many among you who mind only
earthly things, and whose end is destruction !" Do you
not seem to behold him in his prison, loaded with his
chain, engaged in writing, and the tears dropping on his
parchment ? And do you not seem also to behold that
poor body ' of his, one day ill-clothed, suffering, and
benumbed ; the next, beheaded and dragged into the
Tiber, in expectation of " that day when the earth will
give up her dead, and the sea the dead that are in it,
and when Christ shall change our vile body to be fa-
shioned like unto his glorious body?" And if these
details are beautiful, do you think they are not useful
too ? And if r :ful for the man who reads them as a
simple historic^, .ruth, what do they not become for him
who believes in their inspiration, and who says to him-
self: "0 my soul, these words are written by Paul;
but it is thy God that addresses them to thee !" "Who
could tell the strength and the comfort which, by their
very familiarness and their actuality, they may have car-
ried into prisons and cottages ? Who could reckon up
the poor men and the martyrs to whom such traits have
imparted encouragement, example, and joy ? We recol-
lect, in Switzerland, in our day, the pastor Juvet, who
was refused a coverlet, twenty years ago, in the prisons
of the Canton de Vaud. One may call to mind in the
Universal Church that Jerome of Prague, who was shut
up for three hundred and forty days in the prisons of
Constance, in the bottom of a dark foetid tower, and
never allowed to leave it except to appear before his
murderers. No more has there been forgotten, among
the English, holy Bishop Hooper, dragged from his
damp, disgusting cellar, covered with wretchedly poor
clothes and a borrowed cloak, as he proceeded to the
stake, tottering on his staff, and bent double with rheu-
matism. Venerable fathers, blessed martyrs, you
would no doubt call to mind your brother Paul, shut
up in the prisons of Rome, suffering from cold and
nakedness, and asking for his cloak ! Ah ! unhappy he,
WRITING FOB HIS CLOAK. 311
who feels not the sublime humanity, the tender gran-
deur, the provident and divine sympathy, the depth
and the charm of such a mode of instruction ! but more
to be pitied still, perhaps, is he who declares it to be
human, because he does not comprehend it ! Here we
would quote the noble words of the venerable Haldane *
on this verse of Paul : " Here, in his solemn fare-
well address, of which the verse before us forms a part
the last of his writings, and which contains a passage
of unrivalled grandeur the apostle of the Gentiles is
exhibited in a situation deeply calculated to affect us.
We behold him standing upon the confines of the two
worlds in this world about to be beheaded, as guilty,
by the Emperor of Home in the other world to be
crowned, as righteous, by the King of kings here de-
serted by men, there to be welcomed by angels here
in want .of a cloak to cover him, there to be clothed
upon with his house from heaven."
Ah ! rather than bring forward these passages in order
to rob the Scriptures of their infallibility, one should
have owned in them that wisdom of God, which so
often, by a single stroke, has contrived to give us in-
structions for which, without that, long pages would
have been necessary. One should have adored that
tender condescension which, stooping to our feeble-
ness, has been pleased not only to reveal to us the
loftiest conceptions of heaven in the simplest words of
earth, but also to present them to us in forms so lively,
so dramatic, so penetrating, by often concentrating them, .
so as to enable us the better to seize them, in the narrow
compass of a single verse.
It is thus, then, that St Paul, by these words thrown
1 The Verbal Inspiration of the Old and New Testament maintained
and established, by Robert Haldane, Esq. Edinburgh 1830. We
warmly recommend to our readers the book of a man whose memory
ought to be dear to our churches, and whose short residence at
Geneva bore so much fruit. We would also refer, on the same sub-
ject, to a treatise by Mr Alexander Carson : The Theories of Inspi-
ration, &c. &c. Dublin 1830. Both these works have been of much
use to us.
28
312 REVERENCE IN DEPENDING THE
out at random, among the very last commissions of a
familiar letter, darts for us a sudden light on his ministry,
and discovers to us with a word the whole of the apostle's
life, as a single flash of lightning, during night, illumi-
nates in an instant all the summits of our Alps, and as
some people reveal to you their whole soul by a look.
How many striking instances of this might we cite !
They crowd upon us ; hut we are obliged to restrain
ourselves ; and it will behove us rather to keep to the
precise passages which have been adduced as objections.
Before proceeding farther, we must, however, frankly
avow, that we are almost ashamed to defend under this
form the Word of the Lord ; and for any such apology
we experience, as it were, a disgust of conscience. Is
it altogether becoming ? and can we engage in it with-
out some irreverence ? We ought to look well at all
times to the manner in which we defend the things of
God, and see to it that we do not imitate the reckless-
ness of Uzzah in putting forth his hand to the ark of
God, and wishing to hold it, for the oxen stumbled.
The anger of the Lord, we are told, was kindled against
him for his error. 1
If it be fully acknowledged, on both sides, that any
word is contained in the oracles of God, then why de-
fend it .... as worthy of him, by man's reasonings ?
You may do so, no doubt, before unbelievers, but with
men who own the divinity of the Scriptures, is it not to
commit an insult on that word is it not to take up a
false position, and to lay your hand on the ark, as
Uzzah did ? Did this Word present itself to your eyes
as a root out of a dry ground ; had it no form nor
comeliness, and no beauty to make you desire it, still
you ought to venerate it, and look for every thing for
it from him who has given it. Does it not imply, then,
our being wanting in respect for him when he speaks,
when we would prove the respect that is due to him?
Should I not have been ashamed when shown my Sa- >
i 2 Sam. vi. 6, 7.
INSP1BATION OP GOD'S WORD. 313
viour and my God rising from supper, taking a bason,
laying aside his garments, girding himself with a towel,
and proceeding to wash his disciples' feet should I not
have been ashamed to set myself to prove that, in spite
of all this, still he was Christ ! Ah, I should rather
have wished to worship him more fervently than ever !
Well, then, the majesty of the Scriptures desires to
stoop to us ! There do you not behold one who rises
from the table, lays aside his garments, girds himself
like a servant, and kneels before sinners, in order to
wash their feet ? " If I wash thee not, thou hast no
part with me ! " Is there not in that very humiliation,
which reveals itself to us with such a charm, as it were
the voice of the Word in his humiliation ?
As for us, it strikes us that there is no arrogance to
be compared with that of a man who, owning the Bible
to be a book from God, then makes bold to sift with
his hand the pure in it from what is impure, the in-
spired from what is uninspired, God from man. This
is to overturn all the foundations of the faith ; it amounts
to placing it, no more in believing God, but in believing
ourselves. It ought to be enough for us that a chapter
or a word form part of the Scriptures, in order to our
knowing it to be divinely good ; for God has pronounced
upon it as he has upon the creation, " I beheld all that
I had made, and behold all was good." We will never
say then, I find this saying admirable, therefore it is
from God ; and still less, I see no use in it, therefore it
is from man. God preserve us from so doing ! But we
say, it is in the Scriptures, therefore it is from God.
It is from God, therefore it is useful, therefore it is wise,
therefore it is admirable; and if I do not yet see it to be
so, the fault lies only with myself. We hold there is an
error in this protection which man's wisdom would
accord to that of God ; we hold there is an outrage in-
volved in that clumsy stamp with which it sets itself to
legalize the holy Scriptures, and in that absurd signa-
ture with which it dares to mark its pages.
If, then f we still go on here with the work of showing
314 ST PAUL'S ADVICE TO TIMOTHY
how the divine wisdom shines out in some passages
which people dare to consider human, it is not for the
purpose of establishing their divine origin on the judg-
ments of our better informed wisdom, or to procure a
tardy respect for them from the mere fact of the beauty
they disclose. Our respect goes before; it was founded
on the passage being written in the " Oracles of God."
Henceforth, before having seen, we have believed. We
have no thought, therefore, but that of refuting the
objection by some examples of its temerity. Let us
listen, further, to two or three passages to which people
have made bold to refuse the honours of inspiration, be-
cause they have started with the idea that they are
without any spiritual bearing. We will quote but a
very small number here. It takes no time to pronounce
of a sentence that it is useless or vulgar to demonstrate
that there is a mistake in the objection, requires pages.
One of the passages which we have most frequently
heard adduced, when people have wished to justify the
distinction between what is inspired in the Word of
God, and what is not, is Paul's recommendation to
Timothy with regard to the stomach complaints and
ailings with which that young disciple was afflicted.
" Drink no longer water, but use a little wine, for thy
stomach's sake and frequent infirmities." 1
Nevertheless examine this passage more closely; what
an admirable and living revelation do we find in it of
the grandeur of the apostolic calling, and of the amia-
bility of the Christian character! Mark, first, that it was
as it were in the temple of God that it was pronounced ;
for immediately before you hear those solemn words :
" I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the elect angels, that thou observe these things,
without preferring one before another, doing nothing
by partiality. Lay hands suddenly on no man, keep
thyself pure, drink no longer water." One sees that it
is in the presence of their common Master, and of his
1 1 Tim. T. 23.
TOUCHING HIS HEALTH. 31 5
holy angels, that Paul desired to speak to his disciple ;
let us enter then into the same temple, in order to com-
prehend him let us place ourselves on the same
heights, " before the Lord and his holy angels," then
shall we speedily perceive how many heauties are re-
vealed hy these words, both in the ministry of the apos-
tles, and in the ways of the Lord. This the celebrated
Chrysostom well understood, when, preaching on those
very words, he 'observed how little the Lord's most
useful servants should be surprised, should it so happen
that their Lord should deem it fit to prove them, as he
did Timothy, with complaints in their chest, or head,
or stomach should he put some thorn in their flesh;
and should he thus buffet them hy some angel of Satan,
in order to fashion them, on the one hand, for sympathy,
for cordial affections, for tender compassions; and, on
the other, for patience, self-denial, and, above all, for
prayer. Read over seriously, and as if in the light of
the last day, this beautiful passage of the apostle's ; ere
long, within the small compass of this single verse, you
will wonder how many precious lessons the Holy Ghost
would give us, besides that pointed out by the pious
bishop of Constantinople. How many words, and
almost chapters, would have been required, in order
that as much might be said to us under another form !
Here you will learn, for example, Timothy's sobriety ;
he had wished, like Paul, to bring his body under
he abstained entirely from wine. You will see here, in
the third place, with what a tender and fatherly delicacy
the apostle reproved him, either for his imprudence, or
for austerity carried too far. You will remark here
with what wisdom the Lord authorizes, and even bids,
by these words, the men of God to pay the necessary
attention to their health, at a time, nevertheless, in which
he has thought fit to compromise it by sicknesses. In
the fifth place, you will here admire the prophetic fore-
cast with which these words, put in the mouth of an
apostle, condemn beforehand those human traditions
which were afterwards to interdict the use of wine to
816 GREETINGS ADDRESSED BT ST PAUL
believers as an impurity. Here you will see, in the
sixth place, with what tender solicitude, and with what
fatherly watchfulness, the apostle, in the midst of his
high functions, and notwithstanding the cares with
which all the churches overwhelmed him (from Jeru-
salem to Illyricum, and from Illyricum to Spain), di-
rected his regards to the personal circumstances, to his
health, to the weakness of his stomach, to his often
infirmities, and to the imprudent habits of his daily re-
gimen. You will further learn here an historical fact,
which will throw an useful light for you on the nature
of the miraculous gifts. Notwithstanding all the inte-
rest felt by Paul in his disciple, he is incapable of
re-establishing Timothy's health, even he who, however,
had so often healed the sick, and even raised the dead
to life again ; for the apostles (and we learn it again
by this verse, as well as by the illness of Epaphroditus), 1
did not receive the gift of miracles for a continuance,
any more than that of inspiration ; it was a power that
was renewed to them for every particular occasion.
But if these numerous lessons from the apostle are
important, and if we thus receive them all in a single
verse, and in a way the best fitted to affect us, oh ! how
penetrating do they not become to the Christian soul,
from the moment he has the certain conviction that here
we have not the words of a good man only ; that they
are not even those of an apostle only ; but that it is the
voice of his God who desires to teach him, under so af-
fecting a form, sobriety, brotherly love, an affectionate
interest for each other's health, the usefulness of infir-
mities and afflictions even for God's most zealous servants,
and who, in order to convey so many precious lessons to
him, condescends to address him by the mouth of a
simple creature !
People, further, often object to us those greetings
which close the epistles of Paul, and which, after all,
Phil. ii. 27.
TO INDIVIDUAL SAINTS AT ROME. 31?
we are told, are of no more importance than those ordi-
nary compliments with which we all usually conclude
our letters. Here there is nothing unworthy of an
apostle, no doubt ; but no more is there any thing
inspired. Here the Holy Ghost has allowed Paul's
pen to run on, as we ourselves would allow a clerk to
conclude by himself, in the usual form, a letter, the first
pages of which we had dictated to him. Look, for ex-
ample, at the last chapter of the epistle to the Romans.
Is it not evident there, that the apostle surrenders him-
self, in the course of sixteen verses, to the purely per-
sonal reminiscences of his friendships ? Was there any
need of inspiration for the dry nomenclature of all
those persons ? The apostle mentions eighteen by
their names, without reckoning ail to whom he sent
remembrances collectively in the house ot Aquila, in
that of Narcissus, or in that ot Aristobulus. These
verses require no inspiration ; and, what would have
sufficed at most, in order to their being written, would
have been such a superintendence on the part of the
Holy Ghost, as that which he still exercised when he
left them to their personality.
We are not afraid to avow that we delight to recall
here these sixteen verses that have been so often objected
to ; for, far from furnishing any ground for objection,
they belong to the number of passages in which the divine
wisdom recommends itself by itself; and, if you will
examine more closely, you will, ere long, join us in
admiring the fecundity, the condescension, and the ele-
vation of this method of instruction ; you will find in
it, under the most practical and the most artless form, a
living picture of a primitive church ; and you will re-
cognize in it to what an elevation, even the least known,
and the most feeble among them, may rise in its bosom.
Listen first, with what an affectionate interest the
apostle recommends to the kind regard of the church
of Rome that humble woman, who, it would appear,
undertook the voyage from Corinth to Eome for the
sake of his temporal affairs. She was a sister well be-
318 LESSONS TO BE DERIVED
loved, who had put herself at the service of the saints,
and who had not been afraid to open her house to a
great many of the believers, and to Paul himself, not-
withstanding the perils of that hospitality. She was
servant to the church of Cenchrea. It behoved the
brethren who were settled at Rome, therefore, to receive
her in 'the Lord, and to aid her in all her needs. Be-
hold, then, what an example the apostle sets us, in some
words, of that Christian urbanity which ought to cha-
racterize all the mutual relations of God's children.
Admire, as he passes so rapidly under review the
brethren and the sisters of the church of Rome, the man-
ner in which he contrives to pour even over this list of
names which is called dry, the sweet unction of his
charity. He has some words of encouragement and
affectionate esteem for each of them ; he recalls in it the
generous hospitality of Phebe, the risk of death which
Aquila and his companion braved for him, the honour
which Epenetus had of having been the first of the
Achaians that were converted to Jesus Christ, the great
labours of Andronicus and of Junia, who were even
in the faith before him ; his Christian love for Amplias,
the evangelical labours of Urbane, the proved fidelity
of Apelles, the manifold labours of Tryphena and
Tryphosa in the Lord, and those of the beloved Persis.
What an appeal, too, to the conscience. of every serious
reader is there in this rapid catalogue ! See, then, he
ought to say to himself, who the faithful were to whom
salutations were sent in the church of Rome ! And
were the same apostle to write a letter to the church in
which I myself occupy a place for some days, what
would he say of me ? would my name be found in it ?
could he add that, like Phebe, I receive the saints into
my house ; that, like Aquila and Priscilla, I hold Chris-
tian meetings under my happy roof; that, like Mary, I
have bestowed much labour on the Lord's ministers ;
that, like Andronicus and Junia, I had suffered for
Jesus Christ ; that, like Rufus, I am chosen in the Lord;
that, like Urbane, I am his helper ; that, like Tryphena,
FROM THOSE GREETINGS. 319
and Tryphosa, I labour in the Lord ; and that I even
labour much, like the beloved Persis ?
But behold, above all, what a lesson there is for
Christian women in these admirable verses ! In the
unaffected familiarity which terminates this letter, what
a lofty idea is given us of their vocation ! What an
important part, then, is assigned them in the church,
and what a place in heaven ! Without having yet seen
the city of Rome, Paul mentions there by their own
names, no fewer than nine or ten women among his
fellow-labourers. First we have, besides Phebe, that
admirable Priscilla, who had even exposed herself to
death for the apostle, and towards whom all the
churches of the Gentiles felt so much gratitude. Then
we have a lady, called Mary, who had, he says, be-
stowed much labour on the apostles; there was Try-
phena; there was Tryphosa, who laboured also in the
Lord; there was Persis, who was particularly dear to
him, and who had laboured much in the Lord; there
was Julia; there was the sister of Nereus; there was
Olympia, perhaps; 1 there was, in fine, the venerable
mother of Rufus. And observe, in passing, with what
respect he has named this lady, and with what delicacy
he proceeds to salute her with the tender name of
mother. Have we not here the very Christian polite-
ness which he recommends to these same Romans in
the 12th chapter of this epistle : " Salute Rufus, chosen
in the Lord," he writes, " and his mother, WHO is
ALSO MiNii!" 2 What an affecting pattern do not these
verses propose to husbands and wives, in the persons of
Aquila and of Priscilla ! You see them here in Rome ;
you may have seen them, five years before, banished
from Italy by the Emperor Claudius, arriving at
Corinth, and receiving in their house the apostle
Paul; then, eighteen months afterwards, setting off
with him to Asia, and staying at Ephesus, where they
1 Or Olympias. This name might have been that of a woman;
but it is probably that of a man.
8 Rom. xvi. 13.
29
320 CHRISTIAN SOCIETY OF ROME.
already had a church, in their house, 1 and where they
received with so much success the young and brilliant
Apollos, who, notwithstanding his talents, thought
himself fortunate in having it in his power to put him-
self to the school of their Christian conversation and
their charity. Now that Claudius had died, so as to
make way for Nero, you see them, when hardly re-
turned to Rome, immediately consecrate their ne\v
residence to the church of God. It is in their house
that it meets; and you learn here, further, as it were
in passing, that these spouses had not hesitated to lay
down their lives for the life of Paul.
But, besides all these lessons, which, in these sixteen
short verses, are offered to our consciences, you may
there learn further two facts of deep importance for
the history of the church. And, first, you see there,
with the most unsought and the fullest evidence, that
at that time there was no question in Home about
Peter, or his episcopate, or about his popedom, or his
primacy, or even his presence. Do you not perceive a
prophetical foresight in the care taken by the Holy
Ghost to do, for this epistle to the Romans, what he
has not done for any other of the fourteen of Paul's
/
epistles, and to close it thus with a long catalogue of
the women and of men that were the most esteemed at
the time in the whole Roman church? Behold, then,
the apostle of the Gentiles, who, twenty years after his
conversion, writes to them with greetings addressed to
as many as twenty-eight persons living in the midst of
them, by their proper names, and many others besides by
collective designations, and who has not a word to send
them for the prince of the apostles, as he is called, for
the vicar of Jesus Christ, for his superior, for the bishop
of the universal church, for the founder of the Roman
church ! ! Peter was the apostle of the Circum-
cision, and not of the Gentiles; 2 his place was at
Jerusalem ; there we have to look for him, and there
1 Cor. rvi. 19. Gal. ii. 7, 8, 9.
IMPORTANT INFERENCES. 321
Paul had always found him. In his first journey,
three years after his conversation, Paul visited him and
abode fifteen days in his house. 1 -. In his second journey,
to go to the first council, he again meets him there. In
his third journey, in the year 44, at the time of the
death of Herod Agrippa, again it is there that Peter
has his residence. 2 In his fourth journey, seventeen
years after his conversion, 8 Paul fiu.ds him still there,
in the charge of an apostle, not of the Gentiles (mark this
well) but of the Circumcision. And when at last he
was on the way accomplishing his fifth and last journey,
he writes to the Romans and the Galatians; and then
in order that the whole Church might know well that
Peter is not at Rome, and never was there, we find
Paul taking care to salute by their names all the most
eminent among the believers at Rome, even among
the women. What bishop in our days, of the Latin
sect, would dare to write a letter of sixteen chapters to
the church of Rome, without saying to it a single word
either about its pope, or about Peter, or about a vicar
of Jesus Christ ?*
But there is another historical fact, still more in-
teresting, to the knowledge of which these very sixteen
verses, said to be useless, conduct us by the most
striking traits. See, in the very details of these short
salutations, by what humble instruments, and yet how
extensively, the gospel had established itself in so short
a time, in the mighty city of Rome. No apostle had
set his foot there, 5 yet behold with wonder what por-
gress had already been made by the Word of God, solely
through the labours of artizans, merchants, women, slaves,
and freedmen, who happened to be in Rome! Jesus
Christ had his disciples there, even in the palaces of the
Jewish princes who resided at the imperial court, and
even among the pagans who served nearer the person of
1 Gal. i. 18. * Acts xii. 1, 3. a Gal. ii. ^.
* See on this subject the excellent dissertation of Pastor Boat :
" Du pouvoir de St Pierre dans VEglise. Geneva 1833."
Rom. i. 11, 13, 14, 15; xv. 22.
322 FIRST VERSES. THEN BOOKS IMPUGNED.
Nero. Paul asks that salutations should be sent from
him, first (among other Christians) to those of Aris-
tobulus' household ; and, secondly, to those of the
household of Narcissus " who are in the Lord." Now,
the former of these two great personages was the brother
of Agrippa the Great and of Herodias ; the second was
the all-powerful favourite of the emperor Claudius.
Agrippina caused him to be put to death only at the
close of the year 54.
Ah ! let all who call themselves Christians renounce
then, and for ever, those rash systems in which people
rise against the words of the Scriptures, to impugn their
propriety ; in which people take away from God's Bible
such and such a passage, and such and such a word, in
order to make (at least as respects that passage and that
word) a Bible of man's ; and in which people thus
charge themselves with the responsibility of the temer-
ities that shall be ventured upon besides, by doctors of
greater hardihood, imitating upon, a book what they
shall have seen you do upon a verse ! What idea can
a man have of the sacred writers, when he would im-
pute to them the mad audacity of mingling their own
oracles with those of the Most High ? We recollect the
case of a man who had lost his reason, who was supported
by our hospitals, whose handwriting, however, as a
copyist, was so beautiful that one of the Geneva minis-
ters engaged him to transcribe his sermons. Great was
the confusion of the latter, when on looking at his papers
again, he ascertained that the unhappy man had thought
it his duty to enrich all the pages with his own thoughts.
The distance is less, however, between a lunatic and a
minister, even were he holy as Daniel and sublime as
Isaiah, than between Daniel and Isaiah and the Eternal
Wisdom !
Now, then, having advanced thus far, we would wish,
before proceeding farther, to recommend to our readers,
in the practice of sacred criticism, three precautions, the
importance and necessity of which ought to be impressed
upon them by the theopneustic doctrine.
SACRED CRITICISM AN ITS BEARINGS. 323
CHAPTER VI.
OH R10BED CRITICISM, IN THE RELATIONS IT BEARS TO DIVINE
INSPIRATION.
HERE we must not be misunderstood. Far from us be
the idea of attaching the smallest disfavour to works of
sacred criticism ! These, on the contrary, we honour ;
we pronounce them necessary ; we study them ; we
consider all ministers of the gospel bound to know
them, and that the Christian church is bound to be
warmly grateful to them. That is indeed a noble
science .' It is so because of its object ; to study the
destinies of the divine text, its canon, its manuscripts,
its versions, its witnesses, and the innumerable authors
who have quoted it ! .... it is so because of the
services it has rendered : how many triumphs achieved
over infidelity, how many objections silenced, how many
mischievous doubts for ever dissipated ! it is so by
its history : how many eminent men have consecrated
to it either the devotedness of a pious life, or the might
of the finest genius ! . . .. it is so, in fine, by its immense
results, of which no one, perhaps, will ever know the
measure if he has not studied it.
May God preserve us, then, from setting faith here
against science ; faith which lives on the truth against
science which studies it ! faith which goes and lays hold
of it in the hand of its God, against science which seeks
it elsewhere more indirectly, and which often finds it !
All that is true in one place, is in pre-established har-
mony with all that is true in another more elevated
place. Faith knows, then, from the first, and before
324 SACKED CRITICISM A SCIENTIFIC
having seen any thing, that all truth will render testi-
mony to it. All true science, be it what it may, is its
friend ; but sacred criticism is more than its friend it
is almost of its kindred. Nevertheless it is all this only
as long as it remains true, and as it keeps its own
place. The moment it quits it, it must be kept down ;
it then ceases to be a science ; it is but a silly piece of
guesswork. Now, as there are three temptations to
wander from it, we desire here to recommend three pre-
cautions to young men studying it.
SECTION I.
SACRED CRITICISM IS A SCIENTIFIC INQUIRER, AND NOT A JUDGE.
First of all, critical science does not keep its place
when, instead of being a scientific inquirer, it would be
a judge ; when, not content with collecting together
the oracles of God, it sets about composing them, de-
composing them, canonizing them, decanonizing them ;
and, when it gives forth oracles itself! Then it tends
to nothing less than to subvert the faith from its foun-
dation. This we proceed to demonstrate.
Employ your reason, your time, all the resources of
your genius, to assure yourself whether the book which
has been put into your hands, under the name of the
Bible, contains, in fact, the same oracles, the first de-
posit of which was confided, under the divine Provi-
dence, to the Jewish people, 1 and of which the second
deposit, under the same guarantee, was committed to
the church universal of the apostolic times. Assure
yourself, then, if this book be authentic, and if the
copyists have not altered it. All this labour is legiti-
mate, rational, honourable j it has been undertaken
before you abundantly ; and if the investigations of
another have not satisfied you, resume them, follow
1 Rom. iii. 2.
INQUIRER, NOT A JUDGE. 325
them out, get all the information in your power ; all
the churches of God will thank you. But when this
work is over, when you have ascertained that the Bible
is an authentic book, and that the unexceptionable
seals of God Almighty are attached to it, then listen to
what science and reason alike call to you ; then listen
to God ; then sursum oculi, flexi poplites, sursiim
corda ! then dowii upon your knees ! lift up your
hearts on high, in reverence, with profound humility !
Then science and reason have no longer to judge, but to
receive ; no longer to pronounce, but to comprehend.
There is still a task, and it is a science, if you will ;
but it is no longer the same ; it is that of understand-
ing and submission.
But if your wisdom, on the contrary, after having
received the Bible as an authentic book, makes bold to
constitute itself the judge of what is found contained
there ; if, from this Scripture, \vhich calls itself inspired,
and which declares that it is, at the last day, to judge
you yourself, that wisdom of yours dares to take away
any thing ; if, seating itself like the angels of the last
judgment, 1 it drag the book of God to the seashore of
science, in order to collect in its vessels what it sees in
it to be good, and to throw out what it finds in it to be
bad, if it pretend to separate there the thought of God
from the thought of man ; if, for example (to adduce
but one trait among a thousand) it venture to deny,
like Michaelis, that the first two chapters of Matthew
are from God, because it does not approve the Scriptu-
ral quotations found in them ; next, to deny the inspi-
ration of Mark and that of Luke, because it has found
them, it says, in contradiction with Matthew ; 2 in a
word, if it think it has the power of subjecting the book,
acknowledged to be authentic, to the outrageous con-
trol of its ignorance, and of its carnal sense ; then, it is
necessary that it should be reproved; it is guilty of
1 Matt. xiii. 48, 49.
2 Introduction to the New Testament, by Michaelis, vol. ii. p. 17;
rol. i. pp. 206, 214 (English translation.)
326 THE EXAMPLE OF NATURALISTS
revolt, it judges God. Here there is no longer science,
there is fascination ; there is no longer progress, there
is obscurantism.
One may judge of this, if he compare with this blun-
dering of theologians on the word of God, the more
rational procedure of physicians and naturalists in
studying his works. Here, at least, people hold before-
hand as an axiom, that all objects in creation answer to
ends that are full of wisdom and harmony. Here
science sets itself, not to contest these ends, but to dis-
cover them. Here, what people call progress, is not
the daring rashness of controlling the works of their
God ; it is the good fortune to have sounded them, to
have obtained a better recognition of their marvels, and
to have been able to present them under some new
aspects to the admiration of men.
Why, then, will Christians not do with the works of
God in the works of redemption, what naturalists do with
the works of God in creation ? Why, if, even among
the pagans, a physician the great Galen could say
"that in describing the. different parts of the human
body, he was composing a hymn in honour of Him who
has made us," will not the Christian comprehend that to
describe with truth the various parts of the Word of
God, would be always " composing a hymn in honour
of Him who has made it?" Thus thought the apos-
tolic fathers; thus the pious Irenseus, the disciple of
Polycarp, the pupil of John. "The Scriptures are
perfect," said he. " In the Scriptures let God always
teach, and let man always learn i Thus it is that from
the confused polyphony of their instructions, one sole
and admirable symphony will make itself heard in us,
praising by its hymns the God who has made all things." 1
Were we to be told, there was a very studious na-
; " Sic, per dictionum multas voces, una consonans melodia in
D( bis sentietur, laudans hymnis Deum qui fecit omnia," According
to the Greek, as preserved by John Damascenes : Aia. iff tSi xiguw
xo\v$ani<u,tv trvfiufwitt UK^OS'II tiftir O4ff8f,mri. (Adv. Haereses, lib. ii.
c. 47.)
BEPBOVES THEOLOGICAL ARROGANCE. 32?
tion in existence, among whom the science of Nature, tak-
ing a new direction, had begun immense works with the
purpose of establishing that there are mistakes in crea-
tion ; plants badly constructed, animals ill conceived,
organs ill adapted what would you think of such a
people and their grand attempt ? Would you say that
they effected any advance in science ? Would you not
rather conceive that they darkened and degraded it, and
that people there were putting themselves to a deal of
learned labour hi finding out the art of being ignorant ?
While anatomists have been unable to explain the use
of the liver in the human body, or of antennae in that
of insects, they have not on that account found nature
in fault ; they have put it all to the account of their own
ignorance. Why, then, when you happen not yet to
have discovered the use of something that is said in the
Scriptures, do you lay the blame on any but yourselves,
and why will you not wait ?
This is no new idea. It is now sixteen hundred years
since a godly man expressed it better than we have done,
and preached it with unction to his contemporaries. " If
ever, in reading Scriptures," says Origen, in the thirty-
ninth of his homilies, 1 " you happen to stumble on some
thought which becomes for thee a stone of stumbling
and a rock of offence, blame none but thyself (airia
ffaur&v); doubt not that this stone of stumbling and
rock of offence has some great meaning (s^eiv vo^ara),
and is to fulfil that promise, ' He that believeth shall
not be confounded.' (Rom. ix. 33.) Begin, then, with
believing; and soon you will find, under this imaginary
stumbling-block, a plentiful and holy utility? If we
have received the commandment not to speak idle words,
for we shall give account thereof at the last judgment,
how much more ought we to think, with regard to God's
prophets, that every word proceeding from their mouth
had its object to effect and its utility ! 8 I believe, then,
that for those who know how to make use of the virtue
Origenes adamantius, Horn, xxxix. in Jerem. xliv. 22.
2 TleM.ri afaunt aicu. 8
328 OHIGEN'S EXPOSTULATIONS.
of the Scriptures, each of the letters written in the
oracles of God, has its object and its use (Igya^sra/),
even to an iota and single jot. . . . And in like man-
ner as among plants, there is not one which has not its
virtue; and, nevertheless, it belongs only to those who
have acquired a knowledge of botany to be able to tell
us how each ought to be applied and prepared in order
to its becoming useful; so likewise whoever is a holy
and spiritual botanist of the Word of God (rig Boravixos
effrw o aying xai irvevparixog), he, collecting each iota and
each element, will find the virtue of that Word, and will
perceive that nothing in that which is written is super-
fluous (or/ oudzv tfageXxsi). Would you have another
comparison ? Every member of our body has its office for
which it has been placed there by the great Architect.
Nevertheless, it belongs not to all to be acquainted with
its use and virtue, but only to those physicians who
have occupied themselves with anatomy Well,
then, I consider the Scriptures as the collection of the
plants of the Word, or as the perfect body of the Word.
But if thou art neither botanist of the Scriptures nor
anatomist of the prophetical words, go not to imagine
that there is any thing superfluous there; and when you
have been unable to find the reason for that which is
written, blame not the holy letters ; lay the blame on
thyself alone/' 1 Thus spake Origen ; but we might
have found thoughts quite to the same effect in other
fathers, and particularly in Irenseus, 2 who lived still
nearer the apostolic times.
However, we must further bid the reader remark,
that this pretending to judge the Word of God over-
throws all the foundations of the faith. It would even
render it impossible in the hearts of all who are but a little
consistent. This it is but too easy to demonstrate.
In order that a soul receive life, it must receive faith;
And he adds, TeuTe IMI TO stfeoipuat 'iigyrai xaBoXixS; ^{jffifMt Sttu
tantftitm tit 'i'K.r,<i rr, yytQvfl, 'i>et jrjOTfaarawiv el BiXetits xyxrixfiv rf u.vu.yvtW
*lSi iraf&triftxHrBaa ittal-irtcy"ro\i xai an^ifivvti-To
8 Irenaeus, Adv. Hseres., lib. ii. cap. 47.
FAITH UNDERMINED AND OVERTHROWN. 329
in order that it may have faith, it must helieve God;
in order that it believe God, it must begin with re-
nouncing the prejudices of its own wisdom on sin, on
the future, on the judgment, on grace, on itself, on the
world, on God, on all things Is it not written
that the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God, that he even cannot receive them, and that
they are foolishness unto him? 1 The gospel, accord-
ingly, will shock his reason or his conscience, or both.
And yet he must submit upon the sole testimony of God;
and it is not until after having thus settled his relation
to it, that he will recognize it as being " the wisdom
of God and the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believeth." He must believe, then, without having
seen ; that is to say, the gospel, before he has compre-
hended it, ought to confound his own wisdom, revolt his
natural heart, buffet his pride, and condemn his own
righteousness ! How then would you ever get it to be
accepted by men who would, like you, wait to have
every thing approved, before receiving every thing?
Imbued with your principles, they will impute to man
in the Scriptures every thing that shocks their natural
feelings. They will think that they ought to retrench
from it the prejudices of the apostles on the conse-
quences of Adam's sin, on the Trinity, on the expiar
tion, on eternal punishments, on the gehenna, on the
resurrection of the body, on the doctrine of devils, on
election, on the gratuitous justification of the sinner
by faith, perhaps also on miracles. How shall a man,
if he be unhappy enough to imitate you, ever find life,
peace, and joy, by means of faith ? How shall he hope
against hope ? How shall he believe that he is ever
saved, wretched man that he is ? He will have to pass
his days lost in vague, misty, uncertain doctrines ! and
his life, his peace, his love, his obedience must remain,
until death, such as his doctrines are ! We conclude,
then, with this first advice : Make critical science a
learned inquirer; don't make it a judge.
1 1 Cor. ii. 14.
330 SACRED CRITICISM AN HISTORIAN,
SECTION II.
LET BACHED CRITICISM BE AN HISTOEIAN, NOT A SOOTHSAYEB.
There is, in relation to the inspiration of the Scrip-
tures, one other not less important precaution, which
we must point out in the use that is made of science.
The task of sacred criticism is to collect facts on the
Scriptures : do not suffer her to engage you in Tain
hypotheses; there she will do you much mischief. She
ought to he an historian; make her not a prophetess.
When she divines, do not listen to her; turn .your
back upon her; for she will dissipate your time, and
more than your time. Now, the believer's safeguard
here is still the doctrine of inspiration such as we have
exhibited it; I mean of the inspiration, not of the men,
but of the book.
All Scripture is divinely inspired : such is the decla-
ration of the authentic book of the Scriptures. But as
for what passed in the understanding and in the con-
science of the sacred writers, that is hardly ever revealed
to us, and it is what we are not required to "know.
Much time and many words have been lost owing to
men having neglected this grand principle. Scripture
is inspired, whether the author knew or did not know
beforehand what God was making him write. In such
researches, therefore, as studying in each book of the
Bible the particularities of its style, of its language,
of its reasoning, and all the circumstances of its sacred
writer, we can see nothing but good; they are useful, .
legitimate, respectful; and it is in these, certainly, there
is science. Should the student proceed to endeavour,
by these same characters, to fix its date, and the occa-
sion ef its being written, still we can perceive nothing
but what is instructive and becoming in such an in-
vestigation. It may be well, for example, to know
NOT A SOOTHSAYER. 881
that it was under N"ero that Paul wrote to the Jews, 1
enjoining them " to be subject to the powers that be "
It may be useful to know, that Peter had been mar-
ried more than twenty-three years when Paul reminded
the Corinthians 2 that he (the first of the popes, as
he is called) still continued, .in all his apostolic jour-
neyings, to lead his wife about with him, and that
the other apostles, and James himself (who was re-
puted the first of the pillars of the church 3 ), did the
same thing. In this, too, there is science. We highly
value, for the sake of the church of God, all labour
which enables it to comprehend better a passage, aye,
were it but a single word of holy Scripture. But to
proceed from, that to crude hypotheses on the sacred
writers, to make what they say depend on the hap-
hazard of their presumed circumstances, instead of
considering their circumstances as prepared and willed
by God for what they were to teach, to subordinate
the nature, the abundance, or the conciseness of their
teachings to the concurrence, more or less fortuitous, of
their ignorances, or their recollections this is to de-
grade inspiration; it is to lay the foundations of infi-
delity; it is to forget that " the men of God spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost (pggo^Ei/o/), not
with words which man's wisdom teacheth, but with
those which the Holy Ghost teacheth." *
Did the evangelists, it has been asked, read each
other ? And of what consequence is this to me, pro-
vided they were "moved by the Spirit;" and if, after
the example of .the Thessalonians, I receive their book,
not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word
of God ? 5 The putting of this question, we may re-
mark in passing, may be very innocent, but it is no
longer so in the manner in which it is treated, and in
the importance that is attached to it.
When people inquire whether John had read the
gospels of the other three; whether Mark and Luke
Rom. xiii. 1. 2 1 Cor. ix. 5. 3 Gal. ii. 9.
* I Cor. ii. 13; 2 Pet. i. 21. & 1 Thess. ii. 13.
332 IMPERTINENT AND IDLE QUESTIONS
had read the gospel of Matthew before writing their
own (as Dr Mill 1 and Professor Hug 2 would have it,
and as Dr Lardner 3 and Professor Michaelis* would
not have it); when it is asked whether they only
caused to be transcribed with discernment the most im-
portant portions of the oral tradition (as Dr Gieseler 8
would have it) ; when on this huge volumes are Avritten,
in attack or defence of these systems, as if faith and
even science were really interested in them, and as if great
things behoved to result from them to the Christian
church ; when it is affirmed that the three first evange-
lists had consulted some original document now lost,
Greek according to some, Hebrew according to others
(an idea first conceived by Le Clerc, and taken up sixty
years after him by Messrs Kopp, Michaelis, Lessing,
Niemeyer, Eichhorn, and others 8 ) ; when people plunge
still deeper into this romantic field ; when they reach at
last a drama so complicated as the Bishop of Landaff's, 7
with his first Hebrew historical document, his second
Hebrew dogmatical document, his third document, his
fourth document (a translation of the first), then his
documents of the second class, formed by the translatior
of Luke and Mark and Matthew, which brings the
sources at last to the number of seven, without reckon-
ing three more of them peculiar to St Luke and St
Mark ; or further still, with Mr Veysie 8 in England, and
Dr Gieseler in Germany, we would trace up either the
three first gospels, or the four gospels, to apocryphal
narratives in previous circulation in the Christian
churches ; when, with the first of these doctors, people
will have it that Mark copied them with a more literal
exactness than Luke, on account, it is said, of his igno-
1 Millii Proleg., 108.
2 Einleitung in die Schriften des Neuen Testaments. Stuttgart
'821.
a Vol. vi. p. 220-250. * Introduction, &c., vol. i. p. 112-129.
5 Historisch-kritischer Versuch, &c. Minden 1818.
6 Home's Introd. vol. ii. p. 443, edit. 1818.
7 Bishop Marsh's Michaelis, vol. iii. part ii. p. 361.
* Veysie's Examination, p. 56.
REJECTED BY TRUE SCIENCE. 333
ranee of Greek, while Matthew, first written in Hebrew,
must, beyond doubt, have been afterwards translated
into Greek by some one, who must have modified it
out of Mark and Luke, and transmitted it to us at
last in the state in which we possess it ; when, not con-
tent with sketching these systems in a few phrases, as a
task of passing curiosity, people have written thereon so
many and such bulky volumes, as if the interests of the
kingdom of God were involved in them, oh ! we cannot
avoid saying that we experience, in the view of all this
science, a profound sense of grief! But after all, is this
science ? No ! these are no longer scientific inquirers
they have forsaken facts they prophetize the history of
the past ; these are the astrologers of theology. It is
thought, in astronomy, that a book of observations on
the smallest satellite discovered near Uranus, or on the
finding of a second of parallax in the case of some star,
or on a single spot measured in the moon, is a pre-
cious acquisition for science, whilst all the writings of
the Count de Boulainvilliers, and the three hundred
volumes on the Barbaric sphere, on the influences, the
aspects, or the horoscopes of the seven planetary bodies,
can be for it no better than a piece of folly, or a useless
encumbrance. Thus we should set a higher value, in the
pursuits of sacred criticism, on whatever might throw
some surer light on the smallest passage of the Scrip-
tures ; but what end could all these crude hypotheses
ever serve ? In these, people desert the luminous paths
of science, as well as those of faith ; they weary them-
selves in the pursuit of empty nothings ! Vain and noisy
toil expended in misty conjectures formed upon the
clouds ! Nothing good can come down from them !
Wretched pursuits, which teach men to doubt where
God teaches them to believe ! " Who is he," saith the
Lord, " who darkens, by words without knowledge, the
counsels of the Most High ? "
In fact, would that we could say that there was no-
thing there beyond idle fancies, and an enormous loss
of time ! But in these, people do much worse than
334 PIOUS YOUNG PERSONS MISLED.
waste their precious hours : they lose their faith there ;
they fascinate their mind's eyes ; they draw away young
students from the great and first Author of the Scrip-
tures. It is clear that these idle pursuits can proceed
only from a want of faith in the inspiration of the
Scriptures. Believe, for one moment, that Jesus Christ
had given to his apostles (the irus xa) ri, Matt. x. 19,
20) the what and the how that they were to speak ;
admit that the Holy Ghost made them relate the life
of Jesus Christ, as he made them relate his sitting at
the right hand of God, and you instantly perceive that
all these hypotheses vanish into nothing. Not only do
they teach you nothing, they cannot teach you any
thing; but they put your believing thoughts into a
wrong track ; they gradually undermine the doctrine of
inspiration ; they indirectly weaken God's testimony,
its certainty, its perfection. They turn the thoughts ot
your piety from their true direction ; they mislead those
young persons who were looking for the living waters
from the wells of the Scriptures, and who are drawn
away to heal themselves amid the sands, far from the
springs that gush up into eternal life. What, after all,
will they find there ? Broken cisterns, clouds without
water, and at most, perhaps fantastic streams, gleaming
to them for some days in the sun, like a deceitful
mirage on the deserts of human thought.
What would you say of a learned divine who should
endeavour to trace the discourses and the doctrines of
Jesus Christ to the instructions of Joseph the car-
penter, or to the lessons of the school at Nazareth ?
Idle and pernicious task, you would exclaim. Well,
then, the same must he said of all those conjectural
systems which would, on human principles, explain the
composition of the Scriptures. Idle and pernicious, we
say ! Admit inspiration, and all this labour vanishes
like an idle dream. The Scriptures are the word of
God ; they are given by him, and we know that no
prophecy ever came by the will of man ; but holy men
of God spake as they were moved by the Holy
IDLE QUESTIONS HOW SET AT REST. 335
Ghost. 1 The story of Paul's nephew giving warning to
his uncle in the prison of Antonia, is inspired by God,
although Luke may have heard it twenty times from
the mouth of the apostle before receiving it from the
Holy Ghost. That story is inspired, equally with the
account of the invisible angel who was commissioned
by God to strike the king of the Jews upon his throne,
in the city of Cesarea. The account given us of Jacob's
ring-straked and speckled sheep is from God, as well
as that of the creation of the heavens and the earth.
The history of the fall of Ananias and Sapphira is
as divinely inspired, as is that of the fall of Satan and
his angels.
Ah ! no doubt the evangelists had one common docu-
ment after which these holy men of God spoke ; but as
has been so well said by Bishop Gleig, 2 that document
was neither more nor less than just the preaching and
the life of our divine Saviour. That was their proto-
type.
Accordingly, when you hear it asked, from what
documents Matthew could have taken his account of
the birth of Jesus Christ? Luke, that of his early
years ? Paul, the Saviour's appearance to St James, or
the Saviour's words on the blessedness of giving?
whence Hosea took what he says of the tears of Jacob ?
and Jude, Enoch's prophecy ? and Michael's contention
about the body of Moses ? you may reply, that they
were derived from the same source from Avhich Moses
learned the creation of the heaven and the earth.
We have shown how sound views on the inspiration
of the Scriptures, will preserve youthful students from
being led into the two grand errors of modern criticism,
and at the same time enable them to derive from that
noble science the utmost possible amount of good. The
former of these errors, we have said, consists in pre-
tending to subject the Scriptures to our judgment, aftei
2 Pet. i. 21.
8 Remarks on Michaelis' Introd. to the New Testament, the 32d
and follawing pages. Home's Introd. ii. p. 468. Ed. 1818.
30
336 SACRED CRITICISM THE DOORKEEPER.
having admitted their authenticity ; the latter consists
in indulging dangerous conjectures on the sacred books.
But we have still to make an important reflexion on the
relations of learning to the great question which occu-
pies us.
SECTION III.
SACRED CRITICISM IS THE DOORKEEPER OF THE TEMPLE, NOT
ITS GOD.
This reflexion will present itself at once under the
form of an advice and of an argument. But let not
this alarm the reader. We venture on the advice only
as a prelude to the argument; for we do not forget that
our task in this hook is to establish the fact of the divine
inspiration, not to preach it. To begin with the advice \
it is as follows :
Learning is a doorkeeper who conducts you to the
temple of the Scriptures. Never forget, then, that she
is not the God, and that her house is not the temple. In
other terms, when you study sacred criticism, beware of
keeping to that, even as regards learning. She leaves
you in the street ; you must enter. And now for the
argument.
If you penetrate, in fact, into the sanctuary of the
Scriptures, then not only will you find inscribed by the
hand of God on all its walls that God fills it, and that
he is every where there, but, further, you will receive
the proof of it experimentally. There you will behold
him every where; there you will feel him every where.
In other terms, when one reads God's oracles 'with care,
he not only meets with the frequent declaration of theii
entire inspiration, but, further, through unexpected
strokes, and often through a single verse or the power
of a single word, he receives a profound conviction of
the divinity stamped upon it throughout.
As regards advice, it must not be imagined that we
ESSENTIAL ATTRIBUTES AND EXTERIOR FORMS. 337
have given it with the view of discrediting learned in-
vestigations ; we offer it, on the contrary, in their
interest, and in order to their completion. In fact, it
too often happens that a prolonged course of study,
devoted to the extrinsic parts of the sacred book (its
history, its manuscripts, its versions, its language), by
entirely absorbing the attention of the men who give
themselves to it, leaves them inattentive to its more
intrinsic attributes, its meaning, its object, the moral
power which displays itself there, the beauties that re-
veal themselves there, the life that diffuses itself there.
And as there exist, nevertheless, necessary relations
between these essential attributes and those exterior
forms, two great evils result from this pre-occupation
of the mind. By this absorption the student stifles his
spiritual life as a man, and compromises final salva-
tion. This, however, is not the evil we have to do
with in these pages : as a learned inquirer, he compro-
mises his science by it, and renders himself incapable
of forming a sound estimate of the very objects of his
studies. His learning is wanting in coherence and con-
sistency, and from that very cause becomes contracted
and creeping. How can a man become acquainted with
the temple, when he has seen but the stones, and
knows nothing of the Shekinah? Can the types be
understood, when he has not even a suspicion of their
antitype? he has seen but altars, sheep, knives, uten-
sils, blood, fire, incense, costumes, and ceremonies ; he
has not beheld the world's redemption, futurity, heaven,
the glory of Jesus Christ ! And, in this state, he has
been unable so much as to comprehend the relations
which these external objects have amongst themselves,
because he has not comprehended their harmony with
the whole.
A learned man, without faith, living in the days ot
Noah, who had studied the structure of the ark, would
have lost his soul, no doubt; but, further, he would
have remained ignorant of a great part of the very ob-
jects which he pretended to appreciate.
338 ILLUSTRATION A ROMAN TRAVELLER.
Suppose that a Roman traveller, in the days of
Pompey the Great, had wished to describe Jerusalem
and its temple. Arriving in the city on a Sabbath day,
he repairs to the holy place with his guide ; he makes
the tour of it ; he admires its enormous stones ; he
measures its porticoes ; he inquires about its antiquity
and the names of the architects ; he passes through its
gigantic gates, which two hundred men daily open at
sunrise and shut again at noon ; there he sees arriving
by thousands, in regular order, the Levites and choristers
in their linen habits ; and while in the interior, the
sons of Aaron perform their rites ; while the psalms of
the prophet king resound under the sacred vaults, and
thousands of choristers, accompanying them with their
instruments, respond to each other in their sublime
antiphonies ; while the law is read, the word preached,
and the souls that look for the consolation of Israel are
lifted up with delight to the glories that are invisible,
and filled with the deepest awe in contemplating that
God "with whom there is plenteous redemption;"
while aged Simeons are raising their thoughts to " that
glorious salvation unceasingly waited for ;" while sin-
ners are turning to God; while more than one poor
publican strikes. upon hib breast; while more than one
poor widow, with joyous emotion, takes out her two
mites for God's treasury; and while so many invisible
but ardent prayers are rising towards heaven ; what
may we suppose our traveller to be doing? Why,
counting the pillars, admiring the pavements, measuring
the courts, scrutinizing the congregation, taking draw-
ings of the altar of incense, the candlestick, the table
of shewbread, the golden censer ; after which, he walks
off, mounts to the battlements of the fortress, goes down
to the Xystus and to the brook Kedron, makes the
circuit of the walls, counting his steps as he goes, and
then returns to his quarters, there to write out his ob-
servations and to prepare his book. No doubt, he
might boast of his having seen the Hebrew nation, and
their worship and temple ; he might publish his jour-
HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE. 339
ney, and find numerous readers; but, even with respect
to the scientific knowledge which his hook is meant to
diffuse, how many errors of judgment will be found in
it ! and how many errors would the worshippers in thi
temple have to refute in it !
Here, then, is the advice we proffer, in the sole in-
terests of your theological learning. It necessarily
follows, from the necessary relations that subsist be-
twixt the eternal ends contemplated by God in his
Word and its external forms, that, in order to judge
correctly of the latter, you must first have made your-
selves acquainted with the former.
If you would form a judgment of a physician, you
would no doubt desire to know what country he is from,
what has been his course of study, what universities he
has attended, and what testimonials he can produce ;
but should he be the first to tell you what are your
most latent disorders ; should he reveal to you sensa-
tions in your system which you have hitherto vaguely
felt, and the secret reality of which you recognize as
soon as he has defined them to you ; should he, above
all, prescribe and supply the only remedy that could
ever give you relief; would not such an experience tell
you far more about him than his diplomas can do ?
Well, then, the following is the counsel we venture
to give to all such of our readers as have made any
acquaintance with sacred criticism. Read the Bible,
study the Bible by itself and for itself ; ask it, if you
like, where it has taken its degrees, and in what school
its writers have studied ; but come to its consultations,
as a sick person eager to be cured ; be as careful to make
the experience of its words, as you can have been in
studying its language and its history ; and then, not
only will you be healed (which is not the question at
issue here), but you will be enlightened. " He that
healed me said : Take up thy bed and walk ! Whether
he be a sinner I know not : one thing I know, that
whereas 1 was blind, now 1 see I" 1
1 John ix. 25.
340 THE BIBLE ITS OWN WITNESS.
Here the author would take occasion to mention what
a thirst he felt for apologetical hooks during his youth-
ful studies; how Abbadie, Leslie, Huet, Turretine,
Grotius, Littleton, Jennings, Ranhardt, and Chalmers
formed his habitual reading ; and how, while tormented
with a thousand doubts, he came at last to be convinced
and satisfied only by the word itself of the Scriptures.
That word gives testimony to itself, not only by its
assertions, but by its effects, like light, like heat, like
life, like health ; for it carries in its beams health, life,
heat, and light. A man might prove to me, by correct
calculations, that at this moment the sun ought to be
above the horizon ; but can I have any need of these, if
my eye behold him, if I am bathed in his beams and
invigorated by them ?
Head the Bible, then ; do not be learned by halves ;
let every thing have its proper place. It is the Bible
that will convince you. It will tell you whether it
came from God. And when you shall have heard a
voice there, sometimes more powerful than the sound of
mighty waters, sometimes soft and still as the sound
that fell on the ear of Elijah : " The Lord, merciful
and compassionate, the God who is pitiful, slow to
wrath, abundant in mercy, the God of all consolation,
the God who pardons so much, and more ! ! " .... ah,
then, we venture to tell you beforehand, that the simple
reading of a psalm, of a story, of a precept, of a verse,
of a word in a verse, will, erelong, attest the divine
inspiration of all the Scriptures to you more powerfully
than could have been done by all the most solid reason-
ings of doctors or of books. Then you will see, you
will know by experience, that God is every where in the
Scriptures ; then you will not ask of them if they are
inspired ; for you will feel them to be quick and power-
ful searchers of the thoughts and desires of the heart,
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the divid-
ing asunder of your soul and spirit, and of your joints
and marrow, causing your tears to flow from a deep
and unknown source, overthrowing you with resistless
THE MAJESTY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 341
power, and raising you up again with such a tenderness,
and such sympathies, as are found only in God.
All this is as yet mere advice ; hut we proceed to
show in what respect, nevertheless, these considerations
may he presented, if not as a proof, at least as a strong
presumption, in favour of the inspiration of the very
words of Scripture. In them, in fact, we indicate to our
readers a threefold experience, which at all times has
home the fruit of profound convictions among other
Christians, and the testimony rendered hy which ought,
at least, to strike them as demanding the most serious
consideration.
One of the strongest proofs, no doubt, of the divine
authority of the Scriptures, is that majesty of theirs which
fills us with respect and awe ; it is the imposing unity
of that book, the composition of which extends over a
period of fifteen hundred years, and which has had so
many authors, some of whom wrote no less than two
centuries before the fabulous times of Hercules, Jason,
and the Argonauts ; others in the heroic days of Priam,
Achilles, and Agamemnon; others in the days of Thales
and Pythagoras ; others in the age of Seneca, Tacitus,
Plutarch, Tiberius, and Domitian; and who all, neverthe-
less, pursue one and the same plan, constantly advancing,
as if they had all understood each other, towards one sole
grand end, the history of the world's redemption by the
Son of God ; it is this vast harmony of all the Scrip-
tures ; this Old Testament filled with Jesus Christ, as
well as the New ; this universal history, which nothing
stops, which tells of the revolutions of empire to the end
of time, and which, when its scenes of the past have
come to a close, continues them onward with those of
the future, until the moment arrive when all the world's
empires shall have become the possession of Jesus Christ
and his saints : at the first page, the earth created for
the reception of sinless man ; in the following pages,
the earth cursed for the reception of man ever sinning ;
at the last page, a new earth for the reception of man
who will never sin more ! at the first page, the tree of
342 TESTIMONY OF MINISTERS, AND OF
life interdicted, paradise lost, sin entering into the world
by the first Adam, and death by sin ; at the last page,
paradise found again, life again entering into the world
by the second Adam, death vanquished, no more sorrow
to be found, God's image restored in man, and the tree
of life in the midst of the paradise of God. Assuredly
there is in this majestic whole, commencing before there
were men, and continued on to the end of time, a power-
ful and altogether heavenly unity; a convergence of
long ages, universal, immense, whose grandeur capti-
vates thought, transcends all our human conceptions,
and proclaims its Author's divinity as irresistibly as, on
a summer night, the view of a sky glittering with stars,
and the thought of all those shining worlds which re-
volve night and day in the immensity of space. " My-
riads of things in perfect intimacy and symphony," says
one of the earliest fathers of the Church. 1 And yet.
over and above the beauties presented by the Scriptures,
viewed thus as a whole, we have to contemplate some-
thing not less glorious, which reveals to us also the
divine action in their smallest parts, and attests to us
their verbal inspiration.
Three orders of persons, or rather three orders of
experiences, testify to this.
I . And first, if you consult ministers who have spent
their whole lives in meditating on the Scriptures, with
the view of finding daily nourishment from them for the
Lord's flocks, they will tell you that the more they have
given themselves to this blessed study, and have set
themselves to look more narrowly into the oracles of
God, the more also has their admiration of the letter of
that Word increased. Surprised, as they proceed, by
unexpected beauties, they have recognised in these, even
in the most minute expressions, instances of divine fore-
sight, profound mutual bearings, spiritual grandeurs
which reveal themselves there by the sole fact of a more
exact translation, or of the attention of the mind being
1 "Mt/jia fix* **/ fupfmt." Theophilus ad Autolyc., lib. i. cap. 36.
See also Justin JVlartjrr ad Grsecos cohort., c. 8.
THE rNTERFRETERS OP PROPHECIES. 343
longer directed to the detail of a single verse. They
will tell you that the man of God who keeps for some
time close to the eyes of his soul some text of that holy
book, soon feels himself called to adopt the language of
the naturalist who, with the microscope, studies a leaf
from the forest, with its integuments, its nerves, its
thousand pores, and its thousand vessels. He that made
the forest made the leaf ! he exclaims ; yes, says the
other, and he who made the Bible, made its verses also !
2. A second order of experiences, of which we would
here cite the testimony, is that of the interpreters of the
prophecies. All of them will tell you with what evi-
dence, after one has bestowed some time on that study,
it is perceived that in these miraculous pages every
verse, every word, without any exception, and even
down to apparently the most indifferent particle, must
have been guaranteed by God. The slightest alteration
in a verb, in an adverb, or even in the simplest con-
junction, might lead an interpreter into the most serious
error. And it has often been .remarked, that if the
prophecies that are now fulfilled were ill understood
before the event, this arose, in a great measure, from
the circumstance that people had not examined, with
sufficient attention, all the details of their text. Of
this we might adduce many examples.
3. But there is yet another order of persons who
attest to us more loudly, if possible, the divine inspira-
tion of the Scriptures, even in their smallest parts;
these are Christians who have experienced their power,
first in their conversion, and afterwards in the conflicts
that followed. Go, and in the biographies of those
who have been great in the kingdom of God, look for
the moment at which they passed from death unto life;
inquire, around you, about the same fact, of the Chris-
tians who in their turn have experienced this virtue oi
the Word of God : they will all bear one unanimous
testimony. When the holy Scripture, overmastering
their conscience, made them lie low at the foot of the
cross, and there revealed to them the love of God, what
31
344 TESTIMONY OF GOD*S SAINTS.
seized hold of them was not the Bible as a whole, it
was not a chapter, it was a verse ; aye, a word, which
was for them like the humble and powerful knob of
the electric pile, the disks of which should mount to
heaven, or, as it were, the point of a sword wielded by
the very hand of God. They found it quick and
powerful. It was an influence from above which was
concentrated in a single word, and which made it be-
come for them, " as a fire, saith the Lord, and as a
hammer that breaketh the stone." 1 They perused, in
the moment of their need, a psalm, or some words of
the prophets, or some sentences from the epistles, or
some narratives of sacred history; and as they were
reading, behold, a word seized their conscience with an
unknown, sweeping, irresistible force. It was no more
than a single word, but that word remained upon their
soul; there it spoke, there it preached, there it resounded,
as if all the church bells of the city of God had been
struck to call him to fasting, to the bending of the knee,
to prayer, to meeting with Jesus Christ ! It was but a
word, but that word was from God. It was but one of
apparently the meanest chords of the harp from heaven;
but that chord was so stretched as to be in unison with
the heart of man ; it gave forth unexpected sounds, all-
powerful harmonies, which stirred their inmost souls;
and then they felt that those tones are miraculous,
that those harmonies proceed from heaven. They knew
it to be the call of Jesus Christ.
Such, then, is the voice of the Church ; such has
been in every age the unanimous testimony of the
saints The inspiration which the Bible attributes to
itself, they have said, we ourselves have experienced.
We believe it, no doubt, because it attests it; but we
believe it also because we have seen it, and because we
ourselves can bear to it the testimony of a blessed ex-
perience, and of an irresistible impulse of feeling.
One might adduce such examples by thousands. Let
i Jer. xxiii. 29.
OP LUTHER AND AUGUSTINE. 345
us be content to name here two of the noblest minds
that have ever served as guides to humanity. Let the
reader call to his recollection how the two greatest lights
of ancient and modern times were kindled. It was a
word a single' word of the Scriptures which, just at
the moment that had been prepared by God, put into
their souls the light of the Holy Ghost.
Luther, while as yet a monk, went off to Rome. He
lay ill a-bed at Bologna, in a foreign land, overwhelmed
with the burden of his guilt, and believing himself to
be at the gates of death. It was then that the 17th
verse of the 1st chapter of the Epistle to the Romans,
" Justus ex fide vivet " " the just shall live by faith "
came like a beam from heaven, and enlightened his
whole being. These simple words seized him twice
with a superhuman power] first at Bologna, theie to
fill him with inexpressible energy and peace; after that
at Rome itself, there to check and elevate him, while
with an idolatrous crowd he dragged himself on both
knees up Pilate's fabulous staircase. It was with these
words that the Reformation of the West commenced.
" Words of creative power for the Reformer and the
Reformation," exclaims on this subject my precious
friend Merle D'Aubigne. It was by them that God
then said, "Let there be light, and there was light." 1
" In truth," says the Reformer himself, '* I felt as if
entirely born again; and these words weie for me the
very gate of paradise." " Bic me prorsus renatum esse
sensi, et apertis portis in ipsum paradisum intrasse."
Here, too, shall we not call to mind the greatest of
the doctors of Christian antiquity (the admirable Au-
gustine), when, in his garden near Milan, wretched,
ill at ease, feeling, as Luther felt, a tempest in his soul,
as he reclined under a fig-tree, "jactans voces misera-
biles et dlrmttens habtnas lacrymis" groaning, and
giving vent to a flood of tears, he heard from an ad-
joining house that youthful voice, which sang, with
1 See Preface to the History of the Reformation-
346 TESTIMONY OP CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE.
a rapid repetition, of the burthen of the song : " Tolle,
lege ! tolle, lege !" " Take and read; take and read !"
He went off to. the neighbourhood of Alypius for the
roll of the Epistles of Paul, which he had left there;
(adripui, aperui et legi in silentio) he grasped it,
opened it, and read in silence the first chapter that
caught his eye. And when he came to the 13th verse
of the xiii. chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, then
all was decided by a word. Jesus had overcome : the
grand career of the holiest of the doctors began its
course. A word, but a word from God, had lighted
up that mighty beacon which was to illuminate ten
centuries of the church's existence, and whose rays
delight 1 her still. After thirty-one years of revolt, of
conflicts, of relapses, of wretchedness, faith, life, peace
had descended into that loving soul ; a new light, but
an everlasting light, had risen upon it. After these
words, he wanted, nothing more; he shut the book, he
tells us; he no longer felt doubt. " Nee ultra, volui
lagere, nee opus erat; " for with the close of that sentence,
a stream of light and security was poured into his soul ;
and all the night of his doubts had vanished. " Statim
quippe cum fine hujus senientice, quasi luce securitatis
iufusa cordi meo, omnes dubitationis tenebrce diffuge-
runt !"
There is one experience more of the same kind with
which we have been too deeply struck not to refer to
it in these pages, although its testimony may probably
be admitted by those only who are already pious men.
The farther a man advances in the Christian life the
more abundant the measure he receives of God's Spirit
the more, also, you must have observed what, in two
contrary senses, on the one hand^ our sacred books,
and, on the other, the best writings of men, become for
him. While you will see him ever more and more in-
dependent of the latter, because more fully aware that
they have hardly any thing more to teach him, or at
east, because, after having read them once, he has re-
STRONG HISTORICAL PRESUMPTIONS. 347
ceived all that they have to give him, mark with admi-
ration how very much otherwise it is for him with
respect to the divine sayings, and with what a marvel-
lous contrast he is seen'to be ever more attached to the
letter of the Scriptures, ever more convinced of the
wisdom that is revealed there, and of the divine power
put forth there, ever more eager to drink in their slightest
expressions, ever more capable of deriving delicious
nourishment, for whole days and nights, from a single
passage, and from a single verse ! Certainly, there is in
this fact, to the person who has witnessed it, something
peculiarly striking. We ourselves have seen it.
Such, then, is the triple testimony which we would
invoke, and by which the Church attests to us that an
influence from God has been infused into the smallest
parts of the sacred Word, in such wise, that " all Scrip-
ture is divinely inspired."
We must, however, be properly understood. We
have made no pretension here to impose upon some the
experience of others. Proofs from feeling, are proofs to
those alone who have felt. They have, no doubt, an
irresistible force for men who, having experienced them,
have seen the testimonies of the Word confirmed in
them with unquestionable evidence ; but nothing would
be less logical than to offer them as demonstrations to
souls who are strangers to them. If you have had
these experiences, you will be more than convinced,
and we should have no more to say to you. Accord-
ingly, we have presented them only as strong historical
presumptions, to dispose you in this way to receive with
readier submission the Scriptural proofs already put
before you. A whole multitude of well-informed and
pious persons, we say, attest to you for ages past, and
by a threefold experience, that in the close study of the
Word of God, one is brought to recognise, on the
clearest evidence, its inspiration, even in its words.
Let this act, at least, as a powerful recommendation to
listen with respect and candour to the testimonies in
348 TAKE AND READ.
which, the Bible itself has told you what it is. At least,
let this voice of the church call to you, as it were, from
an adjoining house, Take and read, take and read !
adripe^ aperi, lege in silentio ! Read it in silence ; and
you yourself will feel how far its inspiration goes. No
more doubt., you will say, like Augustine ; for the
morning star has risen in my heart ; and you will not
need to read more. Nee ultra voles legere, nee opus
erit i statim quippe cum fine unius sententice, quasi
luce securitatis infusa corli tuo, omnes dubitationis tene-
brce diffugient !
CONCLUSION RETROSPECT. 349
CHAPTER VII.
CONCLUSION.
THE question has been put, Is tbe Bible inspired, even
in its language ? We have affirmed that it is. In
other words (for we have willingly consented to reduce
our whole thesis to this second form, equivalent to the
first), the question has been put, Have the men of God
given us the Scriptures exempt from all error, great or
small, positive or negative. We have affirmed that they
have.
The Scriptures are composed of books, phrases, and
words. Without starting any hypothesis as to the
manner in which God has dictated them, we maintain,
with the Scriptures, that this word is divine, without any
exception. And were any one to ask of us how God
proceeded in order to guarantee all their words, we
should wait, before replying to him, until he has let us
know in what manner God proceeded in order to guar-
antee all their ideas ; and we should be reminded of
the child who said to his father, " Father, where does
God get his colours when he dies the cherries with
such a beautiful red ? " " My boy, I will tell you that
when you have let me know how he paints all the leaves
with so fine a green."
SECTION I.
RETROSPECT.
Divine inspiration, we have said, 5s not a system ; it
350 RETROSPECTIVE
is a fact : and that fact, if attested by God, becomes to
us a dogma. But it is the book that is inspired ; it is
with the book that, above all things, we have to do, and
not with the writers. We might almost dispense with
believing the inspiration of the thoughts, while we could
not dispense with believing that of the language. If
the words of the book are God's words, of what conse-
quence to me, after all, are the thoughts of the writer '{
Whatever his mental qualifications, what proceeded from
his hands would always be the Bible : whereas, let the
thoughts be given him, and not the words, and it is not
a Bible that he gives me., it is only something more than
a sermon.
Nevertheless, we have been at great pains to make
oar reservations.
Scripture is entirely the word of man, and Scripture
is entirely the word of God. man, we have said, it
is here especially that you are called to wonder and ad-
mire ! It has spoken for thee, and like thee ; it presents
itself to thee, wholly clothed in humanity; the Eternal
Spirit (in this respect at least, and in a certain measure)
bas made himself man, in order to speak to thee, as the
Eternal Son made himself man, in order to redeem thee.
It was with this view that he chose, before all ages, men
subject to the same affections with thyself. 1 He pro-
vided for this, and prepared their character, their cir-
cumstances, their style, their manner, their times, their
way. And thus it is that the gospel is the tenderness of
God, and the sympathy of God ; as it is, to speak with
St Paul, " the wisdom of God and the power of God."
Let it not be imagined, then, that the stamp of the
individual character of the sacred writers in the several
books of the Bible, authorizes us to regard their inspira-
tion as intermittent or incomplete. It matters little for
the fact of their divine inspiration whether there be the
absence or the concurrence of the sacred writer's emo-
tions. God may either employ or dispense with th/?m.
* i James v. 17.
SUMMARY. 351
If he uses second causes in all his other works, why
should he abstain from doing so in divine inspiration ?
Besides, as we have remarked, this individuality, which
is made the ground of objection, equally shows itself in
those parts of Scripture which are most incontestibly
dictated by God. This system of a gradual and inter-
mittent inspiration presents characters at once of com-
plication, rashness, and childishness ; but what, above
all, condemns it, is its being directly contrary to the
testimony which the Scripture has borne to its own
nature. After all, think not that, in employing our
personality, it has done so at random. No: all its
several writers were chosen from before the foundation
of the world for the work to which they were destined,
and God prepared them for it, as he did St Paul,
" from their mother's womb." Oh, but the sacred books
are admirable in this respect; how incomparable do
they appear, and how soon do we abundantly recognize
in them the divine power which caused them to be
written !
Scripture is then from God ; it is every where from
God, and every where it is entirely from God. That is
our thesis ; and this is what we have done to establish
it ; this we could do only by Scripture.
If God reveals himself, it is for him to tell us, in that
same revelation, in what measure he has been pleased
to do so. Far from us be all idle hypotheses ! In these
we should only meet with our own fancies, and fasci-
nate the eye of our faith. "What then say the Scrip-
tures ? The whole question lies there.
First of all, we have said, they declare to us, that all
the words of the prophets are entirely given and war-
ranted by God. In the second place, they attest to us
that all .the scriptures of the Old Testament, are the
words of the prophets. Finally, they demonstrate to us
that the New Testament Scriptures are no less so. All
the words of the New Testament, then, are equally war-
ranted by God.
This, too, was the conviction of the apostles of Jesus
352 RETROSPECTIVE
Christ. See what use they made of the Bible, What
was it in their eyes ? Did they not believe in its en-
tire divine inspiration ? Is it possible not to conclude
from their whole conduct that, for them, the Scriptures
were inspired of God, even to their most minute ex-
pressions ?
But there is for us a proof still more decisive than
all the rest. Let us consult the example of the Son of
God himself. Let us attend to what he says of the
Scriptures. Let us listen to him, especially when he
quotes them. Assuredly (we must not be afraid to say
it) among the most ardent defenders of their verbal
inspiration, there is not one to be found who has ever
expressed himself with more respect for the altogether
divine authority, and the perpetuity of their most mi-
nute expressions, than has been done by the man Jesus.
And when a modern writer happens to quote the Bible
in the way that Jesus Christ quoted it, in order to de-
duce some doctrine from it, you will see him forthwith
ranked among the most enthusiastic partisans of our
doctrine of plenary inspiration.
Nevertheless we have had objections to consider.
Some opposed to us the necessity for translations,
and their unavoidable imperfection ; others, the numer-
ous various readings presented by the ancient manu-
scripts which had to be employed in printing our Scrip-
tures. We replied that those two facts could nowise
affect the question. It is the primitive text that we
have to do with. Were the apostles and prophets com-
missioned to give us a Bible entirely inspired and with-
out the admixture of any error ? such is the question.
But, at the same time, we have been called to partici-
pate in the Church's triumph at the state in which our
sacred manuscripts are found, and the astonishing insig-
nificance of the various readings. The Lord's provi-
dence has watched over this inestimable deposit.
What was farther adduced as an objection to the
inspiration of the words, was the use made by the
apostles, in the New Testament, of the Septuagint ; but
SUMMARY. 353
we, on the contrary, pointed to the fact that in the
independent and sovereign manner in which they have
made use of it, you 'have a fresh proof (of the presence)
of the Spirit who caused them to speak.
Finally, some have gone so far as to object to us, that,
after all, there are errors in the Scriptures ; and these
errors they have specifically stated to us. This fact we
denied. Because they have not at once understood some
narrative, or some expression, some have rashly ventured
to censure the Word of God ! While willing to present
some examples of the recklessness and erroneousness of
such reproaches, we hastened at the same time to take
note of this objection, for the purpose of showing its
authors that they could not attack the inspiration of the
language without imputing error to the thoughts of the
Holy Ghost. Reckless indeed they are ! At the very
time that they say of the Bible, as Pilate said of Jesus
Christ, " What evil hath he done ?" they put it upon
its defence at the bar of their tribunal ! To such ob-
jectors we would say, " What then would you do to
those who smite him on the cheek, who spit upon him,
and who say to him, ' Prophesy who it is that smote
thee?' Surely it is not for you to place yourselves on
such a judgment-seat."
The language of Scripture has been blamed for
erroneous expressions, betraying, on the part of the
sacred authors, an ignorance (otherwise, it is said, par-
donable enough) of the constitution of the heavens, and
of the phenomena of nature. But here, as elsewhere,
the objections, on being viewed more closely, pass into
subjects of admiration. It is as if, in making us polish
the diamonds of holy Scripture by a more diligent ex-
amination, they elicited unexpected splendours, and
served only to dazzle us with more brilliant reflections
of its divinity. At the same time that you cannot find
in the Bible any of those errors which abound in the
sacred books of all Pagan nations, as .well as in all the
philosophical systems of antiquity, it in a thousand ways
discloses in its language the knowledge o f " the Ancient
354 RETROSPECTIVE
of Days;" and you will, erelong, ascertain that whether
we look to the expressions which it employs, or to those
which it avoids employing that language maintained _,
throughout thirty centuries, a scientific and profound
harmony with the eternal truth of facts. In that lan-
guage it seems to say : What you knew only but as yester-
day, I spoke not of to you, yet I knew it from eternity
The words of Paul also were objected to us, in which
that apostle distinguishes that which the Lord says
from that which he himself says. We believe we have
shown that, on the contrary, he could not have given a
more convincing proof of his inspiration than is found
in the boldness of such a distinction, seeing that, with
an authority altogether divine, he repeals some of the
laws of the Old Testament.
Still this was not all ; we had to reply to other objec-
tions, presenting themselves rather under the form of
systems, and which would make bold to exclude a part
of God's book from being held to be inspired.
Some have been willing to admit the inspiration of the
thoughts of the Bible, and to contest that of the language
only; but we reminded such, first, that there exists so ne-
cessarya dependencebetween the thoughts and thewords,
that it is impossible to conceive a complete inspiration
of the former without a full inspiration of the latter.
We charged this fatal system, besides, with being no
better than a purely human hypothesis, fantastically
assumed, without there being any thing in Scripture to
authorize it. Accordingly we said that it led inevitably
to suppositions that were most disparaging to the Word of
God; while, at the same time, to our mind, it removed no
difficulty, seeing that, after all, it but substitutes for one
inexplicable operation of God another which is no less so.
But further, we added, what purpose does this sys-
tem serve, since it is incomplete, and since, by the con-
fession of those even who maintain it, it applies to one
portion only of the Scriptures ?
Others, again, have been ready sometimes to concede
to us the plenary inspiration of certain books, but with
SUMMARY. 355
the exclusion from these of the historical writings.
Besides that every distinction of this kind is gratuitous,
rash, opposed to the terms of the Scriptures, we were
fain to show that these hooks are perhaps, of the whole
Bible, those whose inspiration is best attested, most
necessary, most evident ; those which Jesus Christ
quoted with most respect ; those which sound men's
hearts and tell the secrets of their consciences. They
foretell the most important events of the future in their
most minute details ; they constantly announce Jesus
Christ; they describe the character of God; they inculcate
doctrines ; they give forth laws ; they make revelations.
In a word, they exhibit the splendour of a divine wis-
dom, both in what they say, and in what they are silent
about. In order to write them, more than men, more
than angels, were called for.
"We have been asked, finally, if we could discover any
thing divine in certain passages of the Scriptures, too
vulgar, it has been said, to be inspired. We believe we
have shown how much wisdom, on the contrary, shines
out in these passages, as soon as, instead of passing a
hasty judgment on them, we would look in them for the
teaching of the Holy Ghost.
In fine, we besought the- reader to go directly to the
Scriptures, for the purpose of devoting to the prayerful
study of them that time which he might hitherto have
given to judging them ; and we assured him, on the
testimony of the whole church, and after a threefold
experience, that the divine inspiration of the minutest
parts of the Holy Word will erelong reveal itself to him,
if he will but study it with reverence.
But we must draw to a close.
SECTION II.
It follows from all we have said, that there are in the
Christian world but two schools, or two religions : that
which puts the Bible above every thing, and that which
puts something above the Bible. The former was evi-
356 CONCLUSION.
dently that of Jesus Christ ; the latter has been that of
the rationalists of all denominations and of all times.
The motto of the former is this : The whole written
Word is inspired by God, even to a single jot and tittle ;
the Scripture cannot be destroyed.
The motto of the second is this : There are human
judges lawfully entitled to pass judgment on the Word
of God.
Instead of putting the Bible above all,* it is, on the
contrary, either science, or reason, or human tradition,
or some new inspiration, which it places above that
book. Hence all rationalisms ; hence all false religions.
They (profess to) correct the Word of God, or (to)
complete it ; they contradict it, or they interdict it ; they
make it be read without reverence by their pupils, or
they prohibit the reading of it.
Those rationalists, for example, who, at the present
day, profess Judaism, place above the Bible, if not their
own reason, that at least of the 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, and
6th centuries ; that is to. say, the human traditions of
their Targums, the Mischna, and the Gemara of their two
enormous Talmuds. That is their Alkoran : under its
weight, they have smothered the law and the prophets.
Those rationalists who profess the Roman religion,
will, in their turn, subject the Bible, not to their own
reason, but, first, to the reason of the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th,
llth, 12th, and 13th centuries, which they call tradition,
(that is to say, the reason of Dionysius the Little, Hinc-
mar, Radbert, Lanfranc, Damascenus, Anastasius Bibli-
othecarius, Burkardt, Ives of Chartres, Gratian, Isidore
Mercator) ; and next, to that of a priest, ordinarily an
Italian, whom they call Pope, and whom they declare
to be infallible in the definition of matters of faith. 1
Does the Bible require the adoration of the virgin, the
1 This is the doctrine of the Ultramontanists, supported both by
popes (Pascal, Pius, Leo, Pelagius, Boniface, Gregory) and by coun-
cils. Bellarmin, Duval, and Arsdekin assure us that it is the com-
nvHi sentiment of all theologians of any note. " Haec doctrina
oommunis est inter omnes notse theologos." (Arsdekin, Theol., vol.
i. p. 118, Antwerp 16J&.
RATIONALISM. 357
service of angels, payment for pardons, the worshipping
of images, auricular confession to a priest, forbidding to
marry, forbidding the use of meats, praying in a foreign
tongue, interdicting the Scriptures to the people, 1 and
that there should be a sovereign pontiff? And when it
speaks of a future Rome, 2 is it otherwise (all the first
fathers of the church are agreed about this 8 ) than by
pointing to it as the seat of the Man of Sin ; as the
centre of a vast apostasy ; as a Babylon, drunk with the
blood of the saints and the witnesses of Jesus Christ,
which made all the nations to drink of the wine of the
fury of her fornication ; as the mother of fornications and
abominations of the earth ?
Those rationalists that profess an impure Protestant-
ism^ and who reject the doctrines of the Reformation,
will put above the Bible, if not the reason of Socinus and
Priestley, or of Eichhorn and Paulus, or of Strauss and
Hegel, at least their own. There is a mixture, they will
tell you, in the Word of God. They sift it, they cor-
rect it ; and it is with the Bible in their hand that they
come to tell you : There is no divinity in Christ, no re-
surrection of the body, no Holy Ghost, no devil, no
demons, no hell, no expiation in the death of Jesus
Christ, no native corruption in man, no eternity in pu-
nishments, no miracles in facts, (what do I say even ?)
no reality in Jesus Christ !
1 Prohibemus etiam, ne libros Veteris Testament! aut Novi laici
permittantur babere, nisi forte psalterium, vel breviarium pro di-
vinis officiis, aut horas beatse Marise, aliquis ex devotione habere
velit. Sed ne prsemissos libros habeant in vulgar! translates, arc-
tissime inhibemus. (The 14th canon of the Council of Toulouse,
under Pope Gregory IX., year 1229.) Concilia Labbsei, torn. ii.
par. 1-8, Paris 1771.
2 2 Thess. ii. 1-12; Rev. xiii. 1-8, xviii. 1-24. St Jerome, Exhor-
tat. to Marcella to induce her to emigrate from, Rome to Bethlehem :
" Lege Apocalypsim Johannis, et quid de muliere purpurata," &C.
..." septetn montibus, et Babylonis cantetur exitu, contuere," &c.
. . . "Tertullian : Sic et Baby Ion apudJohannen nostrum Romanse
urbis figura est," &c. (Adv. Judseos, Parisiis 1675.)
8 Chrysostom (Horn. iv. in 2d epist. ad Thessal., c. 2.) " What
hindered," says he (of his own time) '' the manifestation of the m;m
of sin, was the Roman Empire : ' Tain-ia-rm ft a.^ Pca/MciKt>- "Orj
&(Sti ix fMirea, TOTE txiivos iif.'
' "
358 CONCLUSION.
Those rationalists, in fine, who profess Mysticism (the
Illuminati, the Shakers, the Paracelsists, the Bourigno-
nists, the Labadists, the Boehmists) will put above the
text (of the Bible) their own hallucinations, their in-
ward word, their revelations, and the Christ who (they
say) is within them. They will speak with disdain of
the letter, of the literal meaning, of the gospel facts,
of the man Jesus, or of the outward Christ (as they call
him), of the cross of Golgotha, of preaching, of worship,
of the sacraments. They are above all these carnal
helps ! Hence their dislike for the doctrine of God's
judiciary righteousness, of the reality of sin, of the di-
vine wrath against evil, of grace, of election, of satisfac-
tion, of Christ's imputed righteousness, of the punish-
ments to come.
Disciples of the Saviour, hearken to what he says in
his Word : there it is that he speaks to us; there is our
reason, there our inspiration, there our tradition. It
is the lamp for our feet. " Sanctify me by thy truth,
O Lord, thy word is truth ! "
Let our reason, then, put forth all its energies, under
the eye of God, first, in order to recognize the Scrip-
tures as being from him, and then to study them.
Let it every day turn more closely to these divine oracles,
in order to correct itself by them, not to correct them
by it; there to seek for God's meaning, not to put our
own in its place; to present itself before their holy
utterances as a meek and teachable handmaiden, not
as a noisy and conceited sybil. Let its daily prayer,
amid the night that surrounds it, be that of the infant
Samuel, " Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth ! " " The
law of the Lord is perfect; the words of the Lord are
pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, puri-
fied seven times." 1
And, on the other hand, let us seek the Holy Spirit;
" let us have the unction of the Holy One/' let us be
baptized with it. It is the Spirit alone that will lead
us into the whole truth of the Scriptures ; which will
i Pa. xii. 6.
LIGHT OF THE LAST DAT. 359
by them shed the love of God abroad in our hearts,
and will witness with our spirits that we are the chil-
dren of God; by applying to us their promises, by giving
us in these the earnest of our inheritance, and the
pledges of his adoption. In vain should we bear in
our hands, during eighteen hundred years, the holy
Scriptures, as the Jews still do : without that Spirit we
should never comprehend in them the things of the
Spirit of God : " They would appear to us foelishness,
because the natural man receives them not, and even
cannot do so, seeing that they are spiritually discerned." 1
But at the same time, while we ever distinguish the
Spirit from the letter, let us beware of ever separating
them. Let it always be before the Word, in the Word,
and by the Word, that we seek this divine Spirit. It is
by it that he acts; by it that he enlightens and affects;
by it that he casts down and raises up. His constant
work is to make it understood by our souls, to apply it
to them, and to "make them love it.
The Bible, then, is in all its parts from God.
Still, no doubt, we shall have to meet with many
passages of which we shall fail to perceive either the
use or the beauty; but the light of the last day will ere-
long bring out their now hidden radiance. And as in
the case of those deep crystalline caves, into which
torches have been brought, after having been long con-
signed to darkness, the dawning of the day of Jesus
Christ, bathing all things in a flood of light, will pierce
into every part of the Scriptures, revealing every where
gems unseen till then, and causing them to dazzle us
with innumerable splendours. Then will the beauty,
the wisdom, the proportions, the harmony of all their
revelations be manifested ; and the prospect will fill the
elect with ravishing admiration, with ever fresh raptures,
with unutterable joy.
In this respect, the history of the past ought to lead
us to anticipate that of the future; and we may judge,
from what has already taken place, of the flood of light
' 1 Cor. ii 14.
32
360 CONCLUSION.
which we may look to see poured upon the Scriptures
at the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Behold what beams of living light were at once dif-
fused over all parts of the Old Testament, at the first,
advent of the Son of God; and from this sole fact try
to form an idea of what will be the splendour of both
Testaments, at his second appearance. Then will God's
plan be consummated, then will our Lord and our King,
" fairer than any of the sons of men," be revealed from
heaven, upborne on the word of truth, meekness, and
righteousness ; then shall his brightness fill the hearts
of the redeemed; and the awful grandeur of the work
of redemption burst in all its glory on the contempla-
tion of the children of God.
Mark how many chapters of Scripture, even as early
sis the age of Jeremiah, or later, during the long reign
of the Maccabees^ and during the whole time that the
second temple lasted, from Malachi to John the Bap-
tist; mark, we say, how many chapters of the Scripture,
now radiant for us with the divinest lustre, must have
then appeared vapid and meaningless to rationalistic
men in the ancient synagogue. How childish, com-
monplace, senseless, and useless must have seemed to
them so many verses and so many chapters that now
nourish our faith, that fill us with wonder at the ma-
jestic unity of the Scriptures, that compel us to weep,
and that have ere now led so many weary and heav}'-
laden souls to the feet of Jesus Christ ! What would
people say then of the fifty -third chapter of Isaiah ?
Doubtless, with the Ethiopian of Queen Candace :
" How can I understand except some man should
guide me? Of whom speaketh the prophet this? ol
himself, or some other man?" What purpose seems
likely to be served by this mysterious history of Mel-
chizedec ? Why these long details about the tabernacle,
Aaron's garments, things clean and unclean, worship,
and sacrifices ? What meaning could there be in the
words " Neither shall ye break a bone thereof? " What
meaning could be attached to the twenty-second, sixty-
GROWING RADIANCE OP THE SCRIPTURES. 361
ninth, and so many other psalms : "My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me ? " " They have pierced my
hands and my feet." Why (they must have thought)
does David occupy himself at such length, in his psalms,
with the common incidents of his adventurous life?
When was it, besides, that they parted his garments
among them, and cast lots on his vesture? What
mean those words " All they that see me shake the
head, saying, He trusted in the Lord that he would
deliver him ; let him deliver him, seeing he delighted
in him ?" What, then, is that vinegar, and what is the
meaning of the gall " They gave me also gall for my
meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink?"
And those exaggerated ana inexplicable words " I
hid not my face from shame and spitting ; they smote
me on the cheek, and the ploughers ploughed my
back?" And what would the prophet mean "Be-
hold, a virgin shall be with child?" Who, again, is
that king, lowly, and mounted on an ass : " Rejoice
greatly, O daughter of Zion ; behold, thy King cometh
unto thee. He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and
riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass? "
What, then, is that sepulture "And he made his grave
with the wicked, and with the rich in his death ? "
How must all these expressions, and many others of
a like kind, have appeared strange, and little worthy of
the Lord, to the presumptuous scribes of those remote
times ! What humanity, would they have said, what
individuality, what occasionality (to put into the mouths
of those men of ancient times the language of the pre-
sent day) ! They were taught, no doubt, in their aca-
demies, at that time, learned systems and long conjec-
tural speculations on the conjunctures in which the
prophets were placed when writing such details, and no
more would be seen in their words than the ordinary
impress of the entirely personal circumstances which
had given rise to their emotions.
But what, then, was done by the true disciples of the
Word of life ? How did ye act, Hezekiah, Daniel,
362 CONCLUSION.
Josiah, Nehemiah, Ezra our brethren in the same
hope and in the same faith ? and ye, too, holy women,
who hoped in God, and waited for the consolation of
Israel ? Ah ! ye bowed with respect over all those
depths, as the angels of light still dp ; and desiring to
see them to the bottom, ye waited ! Yes, they waited !
They knew that in what was the most insignificant
passage in their eyes, there might be, as was said by
one of the church fathers, "mountains of doctrine."
Thus it was that in "searching (as Peter has said)
what the Spirit of Christ, which was in the pro-
phets, did signify, when it testified beforehand of the
sufferings of Christ and the glory that should fol-
low," they never doubted that afterwards, when time
and events should have passed their hand over this
sympathetic ink, there would come forth from it won-
drous pages, all bearing the stamp of divinity, and
all full of the gospel. The day was to come, after
the first appearance of the Messiah, when the least
in the kingdom of God would be greater than the
greatest of the prophets; and that day has arrived.
But we ourselves know, also, that the day is yet to
come, after his second appearance, when the least
among the redeemed shall be greater in knowledge
than ever were the Augustines, the Calvins, the Jona-
than Edwardses, the Pascals, and the Leightons; for
then the ears of children will hear, and their eyes will
see, " things which the apostles themselves desired to
see and did not see, and to hear and did not hear."
Well, then, what doctors, prophets, and saints used
to do with passages that were still obscure to them, and
now luminous to us, we will dp with passages that are
still obscure to us, but which will erelong be luminous
to the heirs of life, when all the prophecies will be ac-
complished, and when Jesus Christ will appear in the
clouds, in the last epiphany of his glorious advent.
What lustre, as soon as it has been perceived, have
we not seen shed on many a passage, many a psalm,
many a prophecy, many a type, many a description,
LIGHTS OF GRACE AND GLORY. 363
the profotind beauty of which had until then passed
unobserved ! What a wondrous gospel has there not
emanated from them ! what appeals to the conscience !
what a display of the love shown in redemption ! Let
us wait, then, for analogous revelations, but much more
glorious still, on the day when our Master shall de-
scend again from the heavens; "for in the Scriptures,"
says Irenaeus, " there are some difficulties which even at
present we can resolve by the grace of God; but there
are others which we leave to him, not only for this age
but for the age which is to come, in order that God
may perpetually teach, and man also perpetually learn
from God the things that are God's." 1
If the lights of grace have eclipsed those of nature,
how shall the lights of glory, in their turn, eclipse those
of grace? How many stars of the first magnitude, as
yet unseen by us, shall, at the approach of that great
day, be kindled in the firmament of the Scriptures?
and when, at last, it shall have arisen without a cloud
over the ransomed world, what harmonies, what celes-
tial tints, what new glories, what unlooked-for splen-
dours, shall burst upon the heirs of eternal life !
Then will be seen the meaning of many a prophecy,
many a fact, and many a lesson, the divinity of which,
as yet, reveals itself only in detached traits; but the
evangelical beauties of which will shine forth from every
part of them. Then will be known the entire bearing
of those parables, even now so solemnizing, of the fig
tree, of the master returning from a far country, of the
bridegroom and the bride, of the net drawn to the shore
ot eternity, of Lazarus, of the invited to the feast, of
the talents, of the vine dressers, of the virgins, of the
marriage feast. Then will there be known all the glory
involved in such expressions as the following : " The
Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand,
until I make thine enemies thy footstool." "Thy
people, Lord, shall be willing in the day of thy power,
1 Irensens, Adv. Haer. lib. ii. cap. 47 : "In* o 0t,- S(S-x>j, ivfyuxot t)
8/ Tavros ua.v8a.vri ir{ Slav.
864 CONCLUSION.
in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morn
ing: thou hast the dew of thy youth." " He shall strike
through kings in the day of his wrath." " He shall
drink of the brook in the way ; therefore shall he lift
up the head."
Then, also, shall our eyes behold, in all his glory,
Jesus Christ, the Saviour, the Comforter,*and the Friend
of the wretched, our Lord and our God ! He that liveth
and was dead, and is alive for evermore ! Then all the
science of the heavens will be summed up in him. This
was ever all the science of the Holy Ghost, who cometh
down from heaven ; it was all the science of the Scrip-
tures, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. 1
It is even now all the life of the saints ; " their life
eternal is to know him ! "
The celebrated traveller, who first brought to us from
Constantinople the only horse-chestnut that the West
had ever seen, and who planted it, they say, in the
court of his mansion-house, could he have told all that
he held in his hand, and all that was to come forth from
it ? The infinite in the finite ! forests innumerable in
a humble nut, and within its insignificant shell trees
in thousands, adorning with their majestic foliage and
bunches of flowers our gardens and shrubberies, dark-
ening with their shade our public squares, and the ter-
races and avenues of our cities ; people celebrating their
national festivals under their ample bowers ; our chil-
dren playing at their feet, and the house sparrow twit-
tering to its mate in their branches ; whilst each of those
trees will itself produce, year after year, thousands of
nuts similar to that from which it sprung, and all like-
wise bearing in them the imbedded germs of countless
forests in countless generations !
Thus the Christian traveller, on passing from the
church militant into his heavenly country, into the city
of his God, to his Father's house, with one of the thou-
sand passages of the Holy Bible in his hands, knows
that in that he brings the infinite in the finite a germ
1 Rev. xix. 10.
THE INFINITE IN THE FINITE. 366
from God, of the developments and the glory of which
he may doubtless even now have a glimpse, but all the
grandeurs of which he cannot yet tell. Possibly it may
be the smallest of seeds ; but he knows that there is to
come forth from it a mighty tree, an eternal tree, under
the branches of which the inhabitants of heaven will
take shelter. As to many of these passages he can as
yet, perhaps, see no more than their germ lying within
a rough shell ; but he knows, at the same time, that
once admitted to the Jerusalem that is from above,
under the bright effulgence of the Sun of Righteousness,
he will see beaming in those words of wisdom, on their
being brought to the light of which the Lamb is the
everlasting source, splendours now latent, and still en-
closed in tbeir first envelopment. Then it is that in an
ineffable melting of the heart with gratitude and felicity,
he will discover agreements, harmonies, and glories,
which here below he but dimly saw or waited to see
with lowly reverence. Prepared in God's eternal coun-
sels before the foundation of the world, and enclosed
as germs in his Word of life, they will burst forth under
that new heaven, and for that new earth wherein will
dwell righteousness.
The whole written Word, therefore, is inspired by
God.
" Open thou mine eyes, Lord, that I may behold
wondrous things out of thy law !"
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